Hey Ya'll! Hope you're having a great week! I'm doing pretty well and want to talk about lenses for travel photography. If you're like me you like to travel and want to get great photo's while you're gone on a trip. But you don't want to take everything you own with you so I thought I would give you a little guide on what lenses to take. Of course the trip will dictate what lenses you take but this will be a good look at lenses you might want to take. When I travel I don't like to take more than 3 lenses if I can get away with it and as in a blog before I sometimes use my phone as a gap lens. Here's the link to that blog . Using phone as a Gap lens

All Purpose lens- A good zoom lens like a 24-70mm lens is a good place to start. It is good for landscapes, portraits and all kinds of stuff. A lot of folks like the f/2.8 max. aperture version but I find that a f/ 4 works great for me . The f/4 max. aperture is cheaper and lighter and works great. I use a 20-70mm version which gives me just a little more on the wider end than the 24. A 24-105/120 mm is also a great choice these usually come in a f/4 but give you a little more reach on the long end of the lens. When I'm out traveling the all purpose lens is on my camera 90% of the time and if I'm on a photo walk I'll only take this lens with me and if I have to go wider my phone is always at my finger tips.

Telephoto lens- Telephoto lenses are great for isolation shots and bringing your subject closer to you. Depending on where you are going a 70-200mm f/4 lens might be the ticket for you. It's a little bulky but not as much as the f/2.8 version which is a tank. I carried the f/2.8 version for a long time before discarding it. If you plan on doing some wildlife then a longer lens will be needed. Maybe a 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 would be a good choice or even longer at 150-500mm depending on your trip. The lens is considerably more bulky but if wildlife is what you're going for that's what you need. I recently went on a trip to South Dakota and wildlife was a big part of the trip and my 100-400 really came in handy. But if you're not planning on wildlife then a 70-200mm will be plenty.

Wide Angle Zooms- If you plan on a lot of landscape photography or shooting in very close quarters in cities a wide angel zoom may be the ticket for you. The standard 16-35mm will give you great shots and plenty wide for environmental portraits. A f/2.8 if you're looking for low light shots but otherwise I would go with f/4 lens . For the obvious reason lighter and cheaper. Depending on the trip this lens sometimes doesn't make it into my bag for the trip.

Prime lenses- These lenses is what I would use for low light . If I'm planning on doing nighttime photography I'll take a 20mm f/1.8 which is plenty bright enough to get the stars in view. Other great lenses are a 50mm and a 35mm both can be had pretty cheaply and with wide apertures of f/1.8 or wider but f/1.8 is plenty for me. They can do great low light and portrait work. A 35mm on your camera can be a great street walk around lens and be nice and compact.

So what would I take? On my recent trip to South Dakota I took 20-70mm f/4, 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 and a 20mm f/1.8. This trip was a lot of wildlife so the 100-400mm came in handy but was big and bulky but luckily mostly shot from the car so I didn't have to tote it too much. I brought the 20mm just for a nighttime shoot we were planning other than that the 20-70mm stayed on my camera.  If I was doing a mostly landscape trip like I did to Utah a couple of years ago the 16-35mm would replace the 20mm although my 20-70 would be wide enough for most of the shots and if it wasn't the phone would come out to capture it. If I didn't carry the 16-35mm then some sort of prime would be in my bag a 35mm or 50mm for maybe a street walk at night or something. As you can see it really depends on what you plan to shoot but I like keeping my travel kit to 3 lenses maximum. A lot easier to travel with and you don't have to make as many decisions on what lens to use because you only have a couple and you can concentrate on the subject that your shooting not the focal length that you have in your bag that maybe you should change out to. I hope this has helped with deciding  what lenses to take with you when you travel. Until next week. Get out and Shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link