Re: Going On An International One Month Vacation With One Lens
It really depends on the trip.
I’m also a three-small-primes person on most international trips and many US trips to cities. I use a Fujifilm X5 with 14mm, 27mm, and 50mm primes, the first two f/2.8 models and the last f/2. (Angle-of-view FF equivalents are roughly 21mm, 40mm, and 75mm.) This makes for a very small kit that fits into my non-camera “personal items” shoulder bag along with my iPad, phone and assorted other things. When out shooting I often go with just the 27mm.
Yet…
I’m currently traveling since very early May. We just finished two weeks (mostly) on hte NC500 region of northwest Scotland (plus a bit of other Scottish stuff), and I”m now in Ireland for a week before doing a one-week walk in the Cotswolds and then hitting a few more British cities/towns until mid-June. Because of the landscape options in Scotland (and, to some extent, in the Cotswolds) I diverged from my norm this time and brought just the 27mm primes (for lightweight city shooting) and…
… 16-55mm (roughly. 24mm- 85mm in FF terms) and 50-140mm v/2.8 (compared to a FF 75-210mm range). The 16-55 got a big workout on Isle of Skye and onward to John O’Groats for landscape stuff. There were a few shots that benefited from the 60-140, but I probably could have found other ways to “see” them with the 16-55.
Because I don’t have the wide prime, I’ve been sticking the 16-55 in the bag in some urban locations. For example, today I used it in the Christ Church in Dublin and it did not need anything else.
What I’m saying is to not be too dogmatic about “the right lens” to take — I think it is conditional and depends on your subjects, your mode of travel, and personal preferences.
May 20, 2026 at 04:02 PM
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