I get asked a lot about what kind of lenses to use for different situations and since I needed to select the lenses I would be traveling with here to Maui, I decided this would be a great opportunity to talk about the lenses I decided to bring and why I chose those particular lenses.

Think about what you will be shooting

On one hand you could make a point for just bringing the most expensive glass you can afford but having a $1,600 lenses that is great for portraits really going to be overkill when shooting landscapes or waterfalls?

For this trip to Maui I knew I would shoot some beaches, water spraying over rocks and lava flows, waterfalls, and maybe some whales. There was going to be very little people shots as we weren’t street walking or hanging around with other people. While the first thing to come to mind would be something like a 12-24mm in order to have a nice wide angle, I know that shooting wide is going to give me a lot of distortion in the image that I won’t want. Since most of the shots are not going to be close up, a 24-70mm would give me less distortion but still give some extra range when needed. For the really long shots I wanted a lens that would give me a good range of focal lengths, hhave a nice long range, but not be too big and bulky. For this lens, I figured a 70-300mm would do the trick nicely.

Which lenses did I go with?

I had the unique opportunity to be able to choose virtually any lenses I wanted to from Sigma and they had two lenses that matched my requirement perfectly.

Short range – wider angle
For the first lens that I wanted for closer shots or wider angle landscapes I went with the Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM. This lens is easily on-par with the Canon 24-70 L series lens. While I certainly didn’t need glass this fast during the bright daylight conditions I was shooting in, this certainly made for an excellent walk-around lens that could pull double-duty for shooting landscapes and then be just as at home shooting a wedding or portrait.

Long range lens
When I want some range I know I need some long focal lengths but that usually means lugging a very heavy lens around. Again, shooting in great daylight conditions means I have no need for wide open apertures, in fact, probably 95% of the shots I took the entire trip were shot at f/5.6 with some waterfalls being shot at f/11 or f/22 in order to get long shutter times. Since I didn’t need a fast lens, the Sigma 70-300mm f/4-f/5.6 DG would work great. Since I am shooting with a Canon EOS 50D, I have crop factor (or zoom factor) of 1.6 making this actually a 480mm lens! Talk about getting some range with his baby and the optical stabilization helps ensure you get the shot you were aiming for.

Specialty Lenses
I haven’t done the math but well over 95% of the images taken on this were taken with these two lenses. Just to grab some panoramas I did take a 12-24mm and I never go anywhere without my Lensbaby Composer which I used several times with the Fisheye and Super Wide Angle optics.

Summary

The key is to really think about what you will be shooting and under what conditions and plan accordingly. When doing a trip like outs with lots of getting in and out of the car, lots of walking, a few short hikes, and the occasional trail, light weight quickly became a key decision point about what was in the grab bag versus what was stowed in the trunk the majority of the time.

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Tags: Lenses, Travel