100-400mm for Travel Photography

Hello everyone.

I've recently acquired this great lens for my FF 6D. I'm thinking about spending two weeks travelling by southern Asia (Vietnam, Myanmar).
I don't think of wild animals or birds, but I'd like start practising new techniques with a telephoto lens.

The thing is that it weights 1.700g (3,74 pounds), and I don't know if for all day hiking, visiting temples, city walks, and so on would be appropriate, or it rather will be a pain.

I also carry a 17-40mm, and a 50mm. I pick the 100-400mm above 70-200mm because I thought 70mm would not be very telephoto for a Full Frame sensor.

Thanks in advance!

"I thought 70mm would not be very telephoto for a Full Frame sensor." what does that even mean.

I have owned 100-400 for many years but also either a 70-200 or 70-300. I much prefer 70mm to 100 for non-wildlife applications and I would definitely carry a 70-200 f4 or a 70-300 in your case.

ButterySAM777 wrote:

Hello everyone.

I've recently acquired this great lens for my FF 6D. I'm thinking about spending two weeks travelling by southern Asia (Vietnam, Myanmar).
I don't think of wild animals or birds, but I'd like start practising new techniques with a telephoto lens.

The thing is that it weights 1.700g (3,74 pounds), and I don't know if for all day hiking, visiting temples, city walks, and so on would be appropriate, or it rather will be a pain.

I also carry a 17-40mm, and a 50mm. I pick the 100-400mm above 70-200mm because I thought 70mm would not be very telephoto for a Full Frame sensor.

Thanks in advance!

I think you are right to be concerned.  Where in Vietnam are you going?  Cambodia, too?  I know it's not your area of interest, but there was little wildlife where we went.  I only remember wanting reach for birds in Halong Bay.  One thing to consider is that air quality is often poor, making long shots iffy.  70-200 shots can always be cropped.

ButterySAM777 wrote:

Hello everyone.

I've recently acquired this great lens for my FF 6D. I'm thinking about spending two weeks travelling by southern Asia (Vietnam, Myanmar).
I don't think of wild animals or birds, but I'd like start practising new techniques with a telephoto lens.

The thing is that it weights 1.700g (3,74 pounds), and I don't know if for all day hiking, visiting temples, city walks, and so on would be appropriate, or it rather will be a pain.

I also carry a 17-40mm, and a 50mm. I pick the 100-400mm above 70-200mm because I thought 70mm would not be very telephoto for a Full Frame sensor.

Thanks in advance!

Congratulations on acquiring a great lens ! But if you're not going to be taking photos of wild animals or birds I would question whether you really need to take a 100-400 to Vietnam. Yes you can use it for landscapes, but it'll be too long for city walks and visiting temples, and probably too heavy for all day hiking.

Rose

Get yourself a 24-105 as your walk around lens.   This is a great walk around lens, I use it on my 5dIV and 1DxII when we travel.  Then keep the 100-400 in your backpack for extra reach if you want extra reach.  I don’t take my 100-400 unless we are going to the Monaco Grand Prix!  Enjoy your trip!

I used to go to Vietnam and India for work and have some long drives. I use the 100-400 on the rides to take photos of people etc.

Herb wrote:

Get yourself a 24-105 as your walk around lens. This is a great walk around lens, I use it on my 5dIV and 1DxII when we travel. Then keep the 100-400 in your backpack for extra reach if you want extra reach. I don’t take my 100-400 unless we are going to the Monaco Grand Prix! Enjoy your trip!

How often do you attend the Grand Prix, an what are your preferred shooting locations?

I love the 100-400 for wildlife, and just replaced my battered fifteen year old copy with the Mark II version, but I don’t think of it for regular travel, I think of it as a wildlife and nature lens. When I visited Vietnam and Cambodia five years ago, I didn’t take it, but I did use a digicam with 300mm or so of reach for photos of other vessels and details of the shore while on a Mekong River cruise. The 100-400 on a DSLR would be even better of course. But it would be a bulky and heavy burden to carry around in SE Asia, and even during the travel to get there.

It is differences of opinion that make photography interesting of course, but if I wanted more telephoto for travel than a standard zoom gives, I’d probably buy a 70-200/4 with IS.

Experiment: Try walking with your 100-400mm lens in the nearest large local city, to visit temples, churches, museums, and such. A large city is a large city, whether local or on another continent. The significant differences, regarding carrying much weight, would be elevation and slopes.

One DPR member, who posts in the Nikon section, uses a 80-400G, which is comparable to your 100-400L, a 16-35G, which is comparable to your 17-40L, and, if I recall correctly, a serious mid-range zoom, which is considerably larger and heavier than your 50mm, for quite serious travel, which includes cruises, with much walking, for hours, in cities at ports of call.

I have yet to travel with my EF 100-400L II IS, and until an upper left arm injury heals, will not use any large lens very much, so cannot yet run this experiment for myself.

1Dx4me wrote:

Rexgig0 wrote:

Experiment: Try walking with your 100-400mm lens in the nearest large local city, to visit temples, churches, museums, and such. A large city is a large city, whether local or on another continent. The significant differences, regarding carrying much weight, would be elevation and slopes.

One DPR member, who posts in the Nikon section, uses a 80-400G, which is comparable to your 100-400L, a 16-35G, which is comparable to your 17-40L, and, if I recall correctly, a serious mid-range zoom, which is considerably larger and heavier than your 50mm, for quite serious travel, which includes cruises, with much walking, for hours, in cities at ports of call.

I have yet to travel with my EF 100-400L II IS, and until an upper left arm injury heals, will not use any large lens very much, so cannot yet run this experiment for myself.

i visited san diego a few months ago and took both, my 24-70 f2.8 II and 100-400 II. i had my 24-70 on my camera the whole time, never touched my long 100-400! there might be a rare possibility to use a long tele lens once in a blue moon when traveling in a city but not much, in my experience!

This makes sense. When I and my nephew traveled from SE Texas, across the South, to the Chesapeake Bay region, and back, in 2015, I knew we would be parking in some areas with property crime issues, and did not want to leave anything valuable inside the vehicle. I decided to take what I knew I could easily carry, which was two D700 camera bodies, a 24-70/2.8G, and an ultra-wide-angle 14-24/2.8G zoom. I rarely used the camera with the UWA zoom, except at night, and rarely wished for a telephoto, except for a few occasional birds. The 24-70/2.8 was suitable for most of the images.

In 2016, I and my nephew traveled to the Atlanta area, and I brought my Canon* 5Ds R, an EF 100/2.8L Macro IS, and EF 35/2 IS. Due to some really bad weather, we did not walk-about much in Atlanta, but the EF 35/2 IS served quite well for most of the images.

In 2017, I scheduled vacation for later in the year, and, well, we had Harvey the Hurricane, then clean-up and repairs, during which the left arm injury happened, so travel, with or without my relatively new EF 100-400L II IS, has been postponed. (I am able to get out and about, but would have to use a tripod much more, if wanting to shoot with a large tele.)

*I have not switched systems. I started with Canon, due to the fortuitous availability of a bag of pre-owned gear. I built upon the Canon foundation, and later added some Nikon gear. I still tend to use Nikon gear when anticipating much low-light shooting. My wife shoots Nikon, so we can share lenses and some other equipment.

ButterySAM777 wrote:

Hello everyone.

I've recently acquired this great lens for my FF 6D. I'm thinking about spending two weeks travelling by southern Asia (Vietnam, Myanmar).
I don't think of wild animals or birds, but I'd like start practising new techniques with a telephoto lens.

The thing is that it weights 1.700g (3,74 pounds), and I don't know if for all day hiking, visiting temples, city walks, and so on would be appropriate, or it rather will be a pain.

I also carry a 17-40mm, and a 50mm. I pick the 100-400mm above 70-200mm because I thought 70mm would not be very telephoto for a Full Frame sensor.

Thanks in advance!

My wife and I are also going to Vietnam, leaving next week for 3 weeks including four days in Singapore. In Vietnam we intend to go to Cat Tien National Park near Ho Chi Minh City for two or three days which apparently has a good variety of bird, animal, and butterfly species.  Other than the national park we will go to parks and zoos in HCHC and Singapore.

Like you, a few months ago I was also pondering whether to take my 100-400 lens but have decided to take it, with my monopod. It is a great lens, not only for wildlife and flower photography but also for tightly framed landscape and people shots.

This link in particular is what helped me make up my mind:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60174786

For me, I'd rather have this lens with me than not having it. I am sure it will get a lot of use. My dilemma is now deciding what other lenses to take or leave behind.

Thanks for your answer.

I'm actually living in Ho Chi Minh, for 3 months, work internship, so Im planning to travel from Vietnam to Myanmar or Cambodia in the next months.
I've visited Nam Cat Tien. Hiking to the Aligators lake it was like 2h one way walking. My arm was so tired carrying the 24-70mm 2.8, with the cam weighted 1.5kg (3.3pounds). I don't want to imagine such hikes, all day most than double with the 100-400mm for example.

More than nature, I am into people and compressed landscapes, I want to learn using a telephoto lens for more than sports and animals.

Btw, be careful with the leeches.