India tomorrow! - Last minute lens advice

JonLondonUK wrote:

Capture the Moment wrote:

I would definitely take the 75mm for character studies, it would be totally awesome. Have fun such a wonderful opportunity.

Oh no - now I'm tipping towards the 75.

75 or 45? 45 or 75?

Sigh

75mm. Not only is it the best lens of the bunch, but the 45mm is too close to the 12-40mm and not that much faster. It's also a LOT smaller than the 75-300mm, which I doubt you'll use too much, but can't beat the reach.

It sounds like an amazing trip!!! Have a great time!

Hi folks, just a note to thank you for the advice - I'm off to the airport now.

In the end, I decided to take the 75mm f1.8.  I was leaning towards the 45 but was persuaded that it wouldn't give me much different from the 12-40 zoom, and what finally swung it was my teenage son needing the lens cap of the 45 for his lens, because needless to say, he lost his own!

Will report back in a few weeks.

Thanks again, Jon

JonLondonUK wrote:

Hi folks, just a note to thank you for the advice - I'm off to the airport now.

In the end, I decided to take the 75mm f1.8. I was leaning towards the 45 but was persuaded that it wouldn't give me much different from the 12-40 zoom, and what finally swung it was my teenage son needing the lens cap of the 45 for his lens, because needless to say, he lost his own!

Will report back in a few weeks.

Thanks again, Jon

Good luck, Jon.  For wildlife, India was almost as good as Africa for us.

RoelHendrickx wrote:

With what you are taking already, I would 100% certainly take the extreme WA fisheye.

I believe that India with be full of crowded chaotic scenes and extreme WA is a way to capture that. But of course only if using a WA fisheye is what you like doing. I personally LOVE it and will never leave for any travel without the fisheye.

So for you, judging from what you write, it is probably better to take an ultrafast short telephoto for portraits.

The 12-40 is already pretty good at 40mm F2.8.

So while the 45mm F1.8 is a light gem, it does not give you a completely different experience, whereas the 75mm F1.8 does bring something completely different to the table. The weight is more but manageable, I think.

Different stokes for different folks - "horses for courses" (if you are British) - 25mm is very good for street scenes in my opinion and you shouldn't go wider because of distortion of human figures. Ultra-wide is great for architecture, especially modernist architecture, once you learn how to use it.

RoelHendrickx wrote:

traveler_101 wrote:

RoelHendrickx wrote:

With what you are taking already, I would 100% certainly take the extreme WA fisheye.

I believe that India with be full of crowded chaotic scenes and extreme WA is a way to capture that. But of course only if using a WA fisheye is what you like doing. I personally LOVE it and will never leave for any travel without the fisheye.

So for you, judging from what you write, it is probably better to take an ultrafast short telephoto for portraits.

The 12-40 is already pretty good at 40mm F2.8.

So while the 45mm F1.8 is a light gem, it does not give you a completely different experience, whereas the 75mm F1.8 does bring something completely different to the table. The weight is more but manageable, I think.

Different stokes for different folks - "horses for courses" (if you are British) - 25mm is very good for street scenes in my opinion and you shouldn't go wider because of distortion of human figures. Ultra-wide is great for architecture, especially modernist architecture, once you learn how to use it.

I agree that 25mm is a good FL for street scenes (as is 35mm).

But sometimes I don't care about distortion and want to capture the chaos and mayhem that can be daily life on this planet.  And the the fisheye can be a real asset.  Also for occasions where you want to show a person up close but against the backdrop of the city, landmarks, buildings.

Like here in Iran :

Nice shot! Point well taken.

Just out of curiosity, how was India? Did you get good photos?

Hi, thanks for asking - and thanks to everyone who helped with advice.

I ended up taking a Canon S100 compact, my lovely EM1, my 12-40zoom, a 75-300mm mkII and a 75mm f1.8. I got some pictures which have given our family quite a bit of pleasure, which I'm still sorting through and will post some here soon.

In the meantime, here's what I found out about myself and my own way of using gear in India. Bear in mind that a lot of the time we were in very out-of-the-way places.

Without question I was super-glad to have the compact with me. I could whip it out of a shirt pocket at a moment's notice, it was easy to conceal so I wasn't being too ostentatious about wealth and there wasn't any faffing around with lenses etc. The additional qualities I wish my compact had were:

Better image quality  (I'm noticing the fall-off in quality when I crop)

Slightly longer zoom and better image stabilisation to go with it.

Slightly brighter LCD (or viewfinder) as it was just occasionally a bit hard to compose in very bright sunlight.

For next time, I think I could solve these problems with an upgrade to a better compact such as Sony RX100 III or similar. For myself, this would then be my go-to camera for travelling.

Where the EM1 really came into its own was in nature reserves. Covered in dust knocked about a bit - it felt robust and while I realise the 75-300 isn't the best lens in the world, for the price and weight I was pretty happy. I also found myself using the telephoto zoom just to give an interesting perspective for general travel shots.

The shots I took with the EM1 and the 75mm 1.8, and with the 12-40mm zoom were great technical quality but I found myself using the compact to cover approximately those focal lengths.

So, with hindsight, and realising that this is a completely personal thing, for this trip I should have taken:

My compact and the EM1 with a telephoto zoom, and that's it.  Next time round, if there's something as small and of similar quality to the SonyRX100 but with a slightly longer telephoto, say 24-120 I think I'd just go with that.

Thanks again!

Jon

London UK