Hello,

I am looking for some recommendations. I am going to Yellowstone, Grand Tetons and Mt. Rushmore in July on a tour. It will not be a Photography oriented tour but I wanted to take some nice shots along the way...needless to say, I will not be up at 5:00am for the morning light....I will be shooting at the time we are at a location and then moving on. I want to bring as little as possible and not spend alot of time changing gear.

My current equipment:

Canon 30d
Tamron 17-50mm 2.8f
Canon 70-200mm L f4

I use a B&W f-pro daylight filter for protection.

Question #1 ...Would it be OK to just bring the Tamron Lense?

Question #2...What lense(s) should you recommend I bring/purchase?

Question #3...Do you recommend shooting with a polorizing filter for these locations??

Any advice is very appreciated. Thanks.

I'd sure try to bring both lenses and add something on the order of a 10-20mm. A lot depends on your shooting style, but you'll find lots of uses for every focal length between 10mm and 200mm. I shoot Nikon rather than Canon, but on my visits my principal lenses have been my 12-24, 24-120 and 80-200. Of the three I can cover about 80% of my landscape shooting with the 24-120, and the 12-24 is the next most useful. The 80-200 is only used when I need a little more reach than 120, principally to isolate landscape features. My 300 and 500 only come out of the pack when wildlife are on the menu. I certainly wouldn't recommend such long lenses on a tour.

You'll find uses for a polarizer, but I wouldn't leave it on the lens all the time. I use them less than half the time on most visits.

Waste of money. (My opinion. YMMV) Keep the hoods on the lenses. Forget putting flare inducing glass in front of your lenses.

Sure.

You're looking at big places. So an ultra wide (10-22) would be nice. You're looking at big distances so a longer lens (100-400) would work. And a longer lens would be nice for wildlife.

At times, yes. I would certainly bring one with me.

If you don't want to carry much then don't carry much. The two lens set you have would work for most things. You can fake the ultra wide by stitching a couple of 17mm shots together. You could toss a 1.4x tc in the bag for the 70-200. Otherwise just shoot what you can with the lenses you have. I doubt you'll run out of subject matter.

Thanks for your reply. What do you mean "stitch together" and would I not have troble shooting without a tripod if I used a lense multiplier??

Stitch together a few images to make one bigger image. Like a panorama. These can be done hand held but make sure you don't have much in the foreground if you do.

And it would be high iso for the 70-200 with a 1.4 to get the shutter speeds you'd want.

Takes as many lenses as you can tolerate carrying. The photo opportunities are both plentiful and diverse. When we went to GTNP and Yellowstone I used everything from 12mm to 550mm. My core lens set was:

Tokina 12-24
Nikkor 28-70
Nikkor 70-200vr
Nikkor 200-400vr
TC-14

The 28-70 got the lion's share of keepers for landscapes, the 200-400 for wildlife; but I used all four lenses and wouldn't have wanted to be without any of them.

You can see the images from my trip here (EXIF and lens info is intact): http://www.pbase.com/jkohn/grand_teton_fall_2006

with a D30 and 70-200 you should have no trouble hand-holding with a 1.4X

if you're not fanatical about composition but want to take a little more care, a monopod is helpful and a well - chosen one will work for a hiking staff

i'd take a 10-22, but from experience no that i probably wouldn't use it much (shooting style) - i'd shoot panoramas with the camera vertical instead - which takes a bit of practice handheld, and an L-bracket with monopod or tripod

i consider a poloraizer essential for these locations - buy the largest you need, and step-up ring(s) for the other lenses. completely agree with not putting UV/protective filters in front of the lens (unless it's raining)

I can't imagine going to Yellowstone and NOT having a polarizer. I use mine (multicoated of course) for every shot that has water in it. It really brings out the color. Why would you only take one lens???? How you going to feel when a terrific wildlife photo suddenly takes shape right in front of you, but you didn't bring your 200mm lens? My 10-20mm and my 80-400mm VR are about the only lenses I used on my last trip there.

BTW, I very rarely use a "protection" filter. Around waterfalls, yes. They really don't protect anything. The lens cap is FAR tougher than a lens cap, and that's what I use all the time. I also use a lens hood which not only protects from flare, but also deflects a lot of things from hitting the glass. I have quite few very expensive lenses and have never had a problem. I do get problems when I use those cheap UV filters that places love to sell you.



Kent in SD