Friday, May 22, 2009

H&C Gear: Best Camera Lens to Take on a Hike

A photographer's dilemma, you're planning a 10km round trip hike. The destination is an alpine meadow at 10,000 ft. or it's a wildflower season in the Rockies. Along the way, you might also see big horn sheep. Pack weight and room is always at a premium, so you only have room for one lens for your digital SLR. Considering weight, function and quality, which lens can handle all these requirements and help you bring back those poster images?

Alpine Meadow Landscape

Wide angle lens are a perfect selection for the landscape image. Wide angle refers to a lens with a focal length of 35mm or less. Canon, Nikon, Tamron, and Sigma all make excellent wide angle lens. Another type of wide-angle lens is the fisheye lens. The difference between a true wide-angle lens and a fisheye lens refers to the amount of curvature in the final picture.

Close-ups of Wildflowers

The wide-angle lens can work great for sweeping landscapes with wildflowers, but what lens is best to capture the vibrant blues of lupine, red of Indian paintbrush and yellows of coreopsis? A macro lens allows you to closely focus on the flower. The term, "macro" refers to the subject in the picture (in this case, a lupine) which is re-produced in the image as close to life-size as possible.

Wildlife in general

Wildlife photography is probably the most equipment-intensive type of nature photography. A lens with a focal length of at least 200mm is needed to get those up-close and personal views of wild animals. Lens manufacturers also make lens that can vary in focal length. These are called telephoto lens. A long lens allows you to get close-up images of an animal without getting too close. This is particularly important with animals with "teeth and an attitude."

Final Verdict:

A Macro Telephoto Lens

Remember, the goal was one lens for a digital SLR, which would capture sweeping landscapes, close-up wildflowers and great shots of wild animals. You could carry all three lens mentioned, but hiking a summit with 9kgs. of photography equipment will wear on you. Fortunately, lens makers have the perfect lens for the task-a macro telephoto lens with focal lengths ranging from 28mm-200mm all in the same lens. The 28-200mm will allow beautiful close-up images of wildflowers, and at 28mm is wide enough to capture the landscape shot. On the 200mm end of the spectrum, this lens will get you close to wildlife.

Recommends

Tamron: Model No.: A18 (AF18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di LD Aspherical [IF] MACRO) mounts on Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Sony. This lens costs you around 24k to 25k.

Model No.: A20 (AF28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 XR Di VC LD Aspherical [IF] MACRO) mounts on Canon and Nikon(NII) only. This lens costs you around 20k to 22k.

Nikon: 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-SVR DX Lens costs you around 34k

Canon: EF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS costs you around 35k

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