I am constantly seeing discussions of what lens or lenses to pack for a vacation. In some cases, you have photographers looking to simplify to a single lens that can cover every possible situation. For me, a few years ago, I would have packed a 20 pound back with nearly every lens I owned so I could cover every conceivable situation. But over time I refined my travel kit down to just two lenses that could cover most of the photographs one would want to take on most trips. And my two selections do not fit the stereotypical picks. My picks may or may not fit others.
Travel lenses
First Ask, What is the point of photography on vacation?
Do you want to come back from a one week trip with 2,000 images, where you photographed nearly every second and every thing that you saw? Or would you prefer to come back with fewer but better photographs? Or prefer photographs that preserve the memories as well as some really special photographs of the beauty seen on your vacation.
You will need to make trade offs. If you want to cover every possible situation that might arise, you not only need to pack 20 pounds of gear, you must also be able to change lenses at the speed of light.
The advice I give in this post will not apply to every person and not every vacation. If I were going on an African Safari, I would pack very different lenses than I would for a beach holiday.
For me, my two lens kit comes with an appreciation that I may be forfeiting a few photography opportunities, while enabling me to capture the most important images at the best quality.
Of course, for most people, the purpose of travel and vacation go beyond just photography. You will likely be on your feet a lot. You may be facing airplane weight limits, etc. So there is certainly an incentive to keep your kit smaller, lighter and more portable.
Avoid the Superzoom
Superzoom lenses that can cover everything from wide angle to telephoto are very popular among dSLR owning vacation photographers. I strongly suggest staying away from them in most cases. While they avoid the need to change lenses, they tend to be heavy defeating some of the desired vacation portability. Further, they aren’t really wide enough when you want wide. If you are going to need telephoto on your trip, they don’t give that much telephoto. If you have low light needs on your trip (such as in a museum or church), these lenses are horrible in low light.
Most importantly, the quality of such lenses is poor. You will find plenty of reviews of superzoom lenses promoting their image quality, but those reviews are only comparing the lenses to other superzooms, a very low bar. Image resolution is not just a function of having a good camera. A camera like the Sony A7riii may have 42 megapixels of resolution, but not every lens can make full use of all that resolution. DxoMark does detailed technical lens testing, and tests the perceived resolution that a lens can achieve on a given camera. Sony has the pretty good Sony SEL24240 FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS Zoom Lens
The perceived resolution on the Sony A7rii is only 15 megapixels –slightly better than you would get out of your phone. What’s the point in bringing an expensive camera on vacation for once in a life time photos, and then get quality no better than your phone?
It’s not just a matter of resolution. Superzooms are small aperture lenses that let in less light. They can therefore be useless in low light situations. They tend to have high distortions.
And to top it all off, they are big and heavy. The 24-240 is 780 grams, that is more than most camera bodies.
Lenses like the Sony 24-240, the Tamron 18-270, etc, are about a whole lot of major compromises just to get the benefit of less frequent lens changing. My advice is simple, if you don’t want to change lenses, then don’t buy an interchangeable lens cameras.
(The exception: If you are at the beach, dusty environment, or horrible weather, it is best to avoid changing lenses or doing so very carefully)
On Most Trips, You Really Don’t Need Telephoto
Among your lenses, your telephoto lenses are probably your biggest and heaviest. And you don’t even need them on most vacations.
If you are going on a safari, you absolutely need telephoto. But if you are strolling the streets of Venice, touring the Grand Canyon, or riding Splash Mountain at Disney World, you have little use for telephoto.
Sure, there may be a few “in the distance” shots that you won’t be able to get. But is vacation about using binoculars to see details far away? I submit that vacation is about immersing yourself in your surroundings and therefore you want photographs that preserve those immediate surroundings. If you want to photograph that Renaissance statue, you don’t want to just see it from a mile away and snap a photo. You want to get close to the statue.
Many photographers will use moderate telephoto for portraits — 70-200mm. I certainly will take family portraits on a vacation but these are very different than the portraits I take when I’m not traveling. The point of a travel portrait is to include the environment, for which I wouldn’t really need a telephoto lens. I can shoot tight headshots with blurred backgrounds anywhere. If my wife is standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, I don’t need a tight headshot with a blurred background.
Lens #1 – A “normal” 1.8 prime
When I’m on vacation, I’m taking in the sights with my eyes. A normal prime, something with the field of view of 45-55mm,, (remember APS-C cameras “crop” their lenses so you would need 30-35mm) gives me the same view that I was seeing with my eyes. These lenses tend to be very light and portable while also delivering some of the best image quality. These tend to be $100 to $500 lenses that can produce better image quality than $2000 zooms, while also being lighter and smaller.
Many people do not want to use prime lenses for travel because they want the convenience of zooming in and out. But modern cameras have so much resolution that if you are using a high quality lens, you can crop quite a bit. So this effectively gives you a bit of short telephoto. And the lens is already giving you the same perspective you’re seeing with your own eyes. Therefore, it’s a great way to photograph much of your vacation.
Because of their wide apertures, these lenses allow for shooting in museums, indoors and in low light when you can’t use a flash.
Importantly, they give you the same type of view that you would be seeing with your own eyes.
They can be utilized very well for people pictures from street photography to environmental portraits.
To emphasize the capabilities of such lenses, they can capture the most difficult of images. I can imagine few situations as difficult to photograph as dark rides at Disney World, and I can imagine no rides as difficult as Peter Pan. It’s dark, you are moving, you only have an instant to capture the perfect extreme low light photograph. Zoom lenses would be useless here, but a decent normal prime is perfect.
Lens #2 – An ultrawide zoom
Vacations usually involve a LOT of scenery. Whether natural landscapes, skyscrapers, theme parks, or architecture. When standing in the middle of such a landscape, you will turn your head from side to side and take it all in at once. When standing in the middle of a Church or museum, you will take in the architecture, the lights, the surroundings all at once. An ultrawide lens can create the same immersive experience in a photograph, letting you take it “all in.”
In this photograph of Daigon Alley at Universal Studios, an ultrawide lens is critical to being able to take in not just the fire breathing dragon, but the surrounding buildings and all the people looking up at it.
Ultrawide lenses provide a sense of scale, emphasizing openness and vastness as in the Lincoln Memorial image below:
Ultrawide lenses create a sense of immersion in the scene, which is the point of vacation/travel photography. Instead of just being images of the scene, they are images that bring you into the scene.
Or this image of the Philadelphia Museum of Art:
Or a way to appreciate the design of a cruise ship atrium… compare this to the chandelier detail shot above..
Ultrawide lenses can be critical to capturing architecture as otherwise there would not be enough room to capture an entire structure..
But a word of warning, ultrawide requires you to get very very close to your subject or you just get uninteresting empty space. In this example, I was really only a few feet from the cars:
Most super zooms and normal zooms start from an equivalent of 24mm or 28mm. This is wide enough for some situations but cannot create the deep immersion of something more like 15mm. While there are ultrawide primes, you will find that different scenes will require different focal lengths. At times, 20mm may be too wide while at other times even 16mm may not be wide enough.
I said above, that I really don’t typically need a telephoto on vacation. Let’s take a look at this image:
The cruise ship is far away. Without a telephoto lens, I can’t get a good detailed image of the ship from this distance. But I can find a million normal images of the ship just by typing it into google. And I had plenty of opportunities to get closer to the ship anyway. But with an ultrawide lens in my bag, I could capture this image which re-creates the entire environment.
The Net Result
My current two lens solution is the Sony FE 12-24 and Sony/Zeiss 55/1.8. When I recently shot Nikon, my two lens solution was the Tamron 45/1.8 and the Nikon 18-35g and/or Irix 11mm/4. When I traveled just with the Sony A6300, my lenses were the Sony 10-18/4 and 35/1.8.
In each case, I was covered in equivalent focal lengths starting at about 12-18mm up to 45-55mm. Throw in some modest cropping, I basically have every focal length covered from 12mm to 70mm. At the same time, I am prepared for low light with a 1.8 prime. There is no one lens that could ever give me this amount of flexibility.
So for me, this kit balances flexibility, portability and the best possible image quality.
My Recommended Primes for Nikon/Canon full frame:
Most of the photographs above were taken on the Nikon D750 with the:
Tamron AFF013N-700 SP 45mm F/1.8 Di VC USD (model F013) For Nikon
Also available for Canon:
Tamron AFF013C-700SP 45mm F/1.8 Di VC USD (model F013) For Canon
Currently priced at $400, the lenses are not the cheapest primes but they are cheaper than most zoom lenses. They weigh just over 500 grams, which doesn’t make them tiny but keeps the weight very reasonable. Importantly, they deliver superior image quality and have the added benefit of image stabilization/vibration reduction. This enhances their low light capabilities even more than most primes.
Of course, if you really want to keep the weight and price down, and you’re willing to forego vibration reduction/ image stabilization there is nothing wrong with these options for Canon and Nikon:
Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G Lens with Auto Focus for Nikon DSLR Cameras
These lenses are cheap, the Canon is just over $100, the Nikon is just over $200. They are extremely light, compact and portable. And the image quality is far superior to any $1,000 big heavy super zoom.
For Canon APS-C and Nikon DX shooters:
A 50mm prime would give the equivalent view of 80mm (Canon) and 75mm (Nikon), not the “normal” view we are looking for. Therefore, you would need a 30-35mm prime lenses to get that normal view look.
Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G Lens with Auto Focus for Nikon DSLR Cameras
Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM Wide-Angle Lens
For Sony Mirrorless shooters:
For full frame, my preference is:
Sony 55mm F1.8 Sonnar T FE ZA Full Frame Prime Lens – Fixed
But if you want to save money, there is nothing wrong with:
For APS-C, as I mentioned above:
Sony SEL35F18 35mm f/1.8 Prime Fixed Lens
Ultrawide Lens Recommendations
In recent years, we have developed a plethora of great choices.
For Canon and Nikon APS-C users, a great choice is:
Tokina ATXAF120DXN 11-20mm f/2.8 Pro DX Lens for Nikon F
Tokina ATXAF120DXC 11-20mm f/2.8 Pro DX Lens for Canon EF
Nikon recently introduced a great budget ultrawide:
Nikon AF-P DX NIKKOR 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6G VR F/4.5-29 Fixed Zoom Camera Lens, Black
For full frame, you really need to consider size as part of the equation. There are some phenomenal fast aperture ultrawide zooms, but they can be massive lenses. Then there are great options with slower aperture that are more affordable and much lighter.
So let’s start with the heavy, expensive, extra remarkable full frame lenses:
Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM Lens
Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED
Good news for Sony shooters: When shooting ultrawide, even the best Sony lenses are fairly small. It is the benefit of the mirrorless design. So the following two lenses are just as good as the above 2 lenses, but much smaller.
This is the choice if you want the fastest possible aperture and you want to be able to zoom all the way from ultrawide to a more normal view:
Sony SEL1635GM 16-35mm f/2.8-22 Zoom Camera Lens, Black
And if you want the absolute widest you can get, then my personal choice may be for you:
Sony SEL1224G 12-24mm f/4-22 Fixed Zoom Camera Lens, Black
If you want to stick to a tighter budget and go a bit smaller, you won’t regret:
Sony 16-35mm Vario-Tessar T FE F4 ZA OSS E-Mount Lens
For several years, I used this great lens from Nikon. It’s light, relatively cheap and great image quality:
Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5G ED Zoom Lens with Auto Focus for Nikon DSLR Cameras
I don’t have personal experience with Canon, but I have heard great things about:
Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras
So forget the superzoom. Save the telephoto lenses for safari vacations. 24-70/2.8 lenses are fantastic for many situations but you really don’t need that weight when you’re traveling.
And happy travels.
