Suggestions for a travel kit

mountainhouse

I'm looking to lighten my camera bag for a trip to Scandinavia this summer. I have: 30D, 10-22mm, 17-40mm, 24-105mm, 50mm f/1.8 (though might upgrade to f/1.4) and 70-200mm f/4 non-IS. I could spend about $1000 on this effort, and there's some chance I will be buying a 7D before the trip. I was thinking of taking the 10-22mm, 50mm and 70-200mm (use my feet to cover some of the gap in the middle). I'm half thinking of getting a T2i as a lighter/smaller body. Another thought is getting something like the 15-85mm zoom.

As a matter of full disclosure.... I was thinking of going with a mirrorless system. I recently bought the Olympus E-PL1, 14-42mm and 40-150mm. But the build quality on the lenses is so poor, that I just couldn't stand it and it's going back.

knapph

Light Travel
This is a question I ask myself before each of our trips. My wife and I restrict ourselves to 2 lenses each when traveling. We have found we can not keep up with more than that. We use Nikons and I have no experience with Canon lenses so I can not comment on specific lenses I would recommend. Also we are shooting with cropped sensor bodies not full frame. As far as focal lengths go: my wife either uses a 18-200 and no other lens or will use 18-55 and 55-200 if she wants to carry two bodies. In the Nikon world the 18-55 and the 55-200 are inexpensive lenses with a nice sharp sweet spot at f/11. We do not mind if these lenses get damaged by harsh conditions etc. I use an 18-70 and 70-300. Since I do not have a second body, I have found that most of the time I am shooting with the 18-70. We leave the f/2.8 lenses at home when traveling internationally. Too much weight when we are going to be on the go all day. I will bump the ISO or use a flash if I need to. If I am in a shutter speed range I am not too steady with, I put the camera on high speed shooting mode and take 5-10 shots. Often one of them will be acceptable for lack of shakey hand blur. I have been tempted to take a 10-20 with me but in the end I have always talked myself out of it. I use a 10-20 to enable me to have something close in focus with a good amount of background. I do not use it to get wide landscape shots. Instead, I use the 18-70 and shoot shot panos to get the wide shots. Two shot pano of the Pudong in Shanghai:



Here is a pano of Jerusalem, I think it was 12 vertical shots before cropping.




I use the same technique to get interesting shots inside buildings, e.g., shoot a pano of a church ceiling.

We do take full sized flashes with us and have used them a lot both for inside shots and for fill flash. I also take a small pocket camera with me for those times I do not want to have an SLR around my neck, like going to dinner. These have ranged from a Casio EX-Z850 to a Canon G9, to the latest a Panasonic LX-5. I do not expect the highest quality from the cameras and I am always happy with the results I get when I work within the capabilities of the camera. These are also handy for quick video clips.

I looked at your website and it appears you are an experienced traveler so the next suggestions may be of little use to you. We carry two external hard drives for backing up our shots each day and keep the drives separate from each other. One stays in my backpack and the other stays in the hotel safe (one stays with me and one stays with my wife when we are on a plane or bus, etc.). We use one smallish backpack when we are out shooting and keep our extra gear as well as water, parkas and that type of stuff in it. We wrap the extra camera bits in the parkas for extra protection if it is needed. This pack has locks on the zippers to keep it from being opened without me knowing it. It is not armored so someone could cut through it. I also keep a GPS attached to an external antenna, to increase sensitivity, inside the pack. The gps has helped greatly identifying shooting locations.

I carry the cameras in the backpack on the plane. I break them down and store the lenses and bodies inside Eagle Creek Protect-It cubes. I leave these cubes in the hotel when we are out shooting. I have also used socks to protect the camera gear in transit.

That's about it. Have a great trip. I have loved my travels in that part of the world.

rpcrowe

It depends on your shooting style...
Some photographers want/need UWA capability while others lean toward telephoto lenses. Some like very fast primes while others enjoy the flexibility of zoom lenses.

As for me, I like the combination of a 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and the 70-200mm f/4L IS lenses mounted on a pair of 1.6x cameras. I use two cameras because I don't enjoy switching lenses in the field frequently. My cameras are the Canon 30D and 40D, I just may upgrade the 30D to a 7D sometime in the future but, for now they are quite satisfactory.

I carry a pair of flashes 550EX and a tiny 270EX with Joe Demb Flip-It reflector/diffusers for each flash. I carry Eneloop batteries and charger for the flash units and an extra camera battery for each camera plus a charger for those batteries. I carry loads and loads of CF cards.

I also carry a UV filter for each lens (to use in harsh environments) and a CPL for each lens, Since I use both these lenses at the same time, the route of getting the 77mm filters and a 67mm adapter is not possible.

I have a modified SLIK Pro 330DX tripod which weighs just a tad over two pounds along with a Calumet carbon fiber monopod weighing less than a pound.

I can accomplish 90-85% of my travel imagery with these two lenses and I will add a 1.4x TC to increase the focal length of the 70-200L when needed.

This kit is not very heavy and I carry the equipment (minus the tripod and monopod) in my Lowepro Mini Trekker...

See my China Galleries shot exclusively with the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and 70-200mm f/4L IS lenses on a 30D and a 40D: http://rpcrowe.smugmug.com/

My wife usually carries her notebook computer and I use it to download to a pair of My Passport 500GB external hard drives.