My wife, my youngest son, and I will be doing a whirlwind tour in mid June to London, the Normandy coast, and Paris. I am trying to limit the photography gear I take (we will be traveling very light), but don't want to be bummed I didn't bring the right stuff.
My wife's thoughts about camera gear for the trip: 'Use your iPhone'
My son's thoughts: "Let me use you iPhone to play games" and bring that little Panosonic camera that you can get wet..."
My absolutes:
- D300 body with 3-4 cards and 3 batteries
- At least two lenses but I don't know what I really should take????
- Other things??
If I were you, I'd definitely bring the TS1 for just generally carrying around with you.
Beyond that, I'd bring the 17-55 and the 50 1.4 for lowlight. (ETA Didn't realize your 50 1.4 was MF... shooting at 1.4 in lowlight in MF might pose a challenge so I'm a bit unsure what to suggest for you unless you're confident shooting wide open with manual focus.) You might consider your Tokina, but there's a good deal of overlap between that and the 17-55. I suggest you think about how well you can stitch photos from the 17-55 (meaning, how much barrel distortion does it have?) and then just omit the 12-24 if possible.
I've brought teles and rarely used them. I think I've used my 18-200 (only really use it while traveling light) @ 200 maybe 10 times, but I always use it at 18 and I often bring my Sigma 10-20 because I hate how the 18-200 stitches. Generally speaking, what I typically bring these days are my 28-70 and the 30 1.4 and that's it. Anything wider than 28 I stitch and the 30 takes care of lowlight. Sometimes a flash but not generally, since I prefer the look of ambient light for my vacation/"in the moment" shots.
Personally, I like the 30mm focal length for my lowlight stuff for indoors etc, as I'm not too keen on how the 50mm is a short tele on dx, but you would have to rent one.
Bring a polarizer if you have one- your countrysides will thank you and it takes up no space. I'd also make sure to bring a Rocketblower and lens cleaner.
You MUST have your wide angle with you. When you are in front of the wonderful buildings of La Defense or when you are tasting the cold Normandy wind on a cliff, you need your wide angle lens :)
Just take your wide angle and your nifty fifty, you want to be going as light as you can, if it were me I'd just take the 50, that's all I take anywhere now.
