Hiking Inca Trail in Peru: 19mm Prime or 14-42 Zoom?

zijincheng wrote:

eques wrote:

Mike Gunter wrote:

Hi,

I agree. A zoom will be more versatile. A faster zoom more versatile. Many who walk to the village to the Paek take a 15-mile route, I didn't walk it but saw it from the train. Several camp enroute. Frequent showers can happen and certainly will happen in season.

Another poster suggested the 12-35mm a f2.8, a nice choice. I have it and like it. The 12-100mm f2.8 also.

You probably mean the 12-100 f/4: I have it, but it is heavy at 560g and quite big; but yes it is very sharp.

And, like the 12-35, it is weather sealed!

Neither would be cheap, both would be sharp.

Bring extra batteries and keep them charged.

By all means!

Peter

Right, faster zooms are expensive though, I'm probably considered quite a miser on cameras (at least on dpreview) so I balk even at $500(CAD, which is approx $350USD) lens.

I think that for landscapes, you generally don't need a fast lens nor do you need to shoot it at its widest aperture. In which case many "lesser" lenses would suffice rather well.

For what it's worth, I have the Panasonic 12-35/2.8 and I like it a lot; it's my most-used lens by a large margin. But I also recently got the Panasonic Lumix 12-60/3.5-5.6 which came with my GX9 and I have to say that it's a pretty good lens. In fact, I brought it in place of my 12-35 and 35-100 2.8 zooms on our trip to the Caribbean last summer and it performed admirably. It's also rather light and is weather sealed which may come in handy if you ever get a weather sealed camera. As for benefits over what you have, well, it has that 12mm wide end and and 60mm gives you a noticeable amount more reach than 40mm; all in one package. I thought that image quality might be better than that Chinese-brand 12-40 you have but then read this comparison (http://www.shuttersinthenight.com/2017/02/05/yi-12-40mm-f3-5-5-6-lens-review-vs-panasonic-12-60mm-f3-5-5-6/) and was surprised by how well the Yi 12-40 did. I'd still prefer the Panasonic since it's faster in the longer focal lengths, has a longer focal length, and is sharper in the center.

As for price, I've seen them for sale on a Canadian Craigslist (I live in the Vancouver area) for around CAD$300. BTW there's a G85 + 12-60 available right now and the seller is selling the lens by itself for CAD$199: https://vancouver.craigslist.org/rds/pho/d/surrey-panasonic-lumix-g-lens/7049321098.html

(Or you could buy the camera + lens for CAD$750 which would get you a water resistant combo with very good stabilization and the ability to shoot 1080 @ 60fps and 4K @ 30fps.)

Realistically, though, people have come back with gorgeous photos with far less equipment than you have in your possession (this bit of wisdom applies to me a LOT more, too). So don't feel like you MUST upgrade. As you correctly identified, the best way to improve your odds of bringing back rewarding photos is to start studying composition.

To give you a bit of inspiration, read this guy's account of using just a 20/1.7 prime for his trek in Nepal: https://craigmod.com/journal/gf1-fieldtest/