Originally uploaded by idarknight.
There are a handful of Paris icons, The lady of iron lace is certainly one of them. This picture is straight out of the stitching software, so there are no adjustments made yet. I’ve finished all the stitching and now I’m almost ready to get through to the next stage of my photo adventure after coming back from Europe. There are over 2500 images for me to import into Aperture, sort, adjust if needed and then put up into my gallery.
One thing that I learned from this last trip? If you go to an old city like Paris or London, you need to be sure to bring only one lens. Unless of course you have lots of time to swap lenses, and can find space to do that. So that leaves you the choice of which lens to bring.
Assuming you have a cropped camera (not entry and not pro) like the Canon 30D/40D or Nikon D70/D80, I would suggest the following. Decide before you go out for the day what kind of pictures you want to take home. If you want details, bring a zoom (70-200 or 70-300), if you want to get the majesty of the city or structure get an ultra wide like a 10-22 for Canon or a 10-20 from Sigma (I don’t know if there is a comparable Nikkor lens). And if you want a compromise, 17-55 is a great compromise. Thankfully, this is also the range that the majority of kit lenses cover. With this range, you’ll be able to get close to some details and you can go wide enough to be able to stitch things together.
This seems to be common sense right? … and you know what they say about common sense… Well, it seems to be a perennial question on many photo forums that I frequent and often people give all manner of advice, but the person new to photography is likely as not to get confused with this advice. So this advice is to those people just getting into DSLR shooting and heading off on vacation. The starter kit that comes with your camera is all you need to get going! When you find yourself limited to what you can do with that setup, then start looking around for other lenses. By this time, you’ll likely know enough about your own photography to make the choice as to what to get for you next lens.
All that being said, for the people with more than one lens already and who are wondering about which one to take, I refer you to the first paragraph. Personally, I would have been very well served by a 10-22 if I had it as many of my photos are shot wide and the really good ones are stitched.
Finally, regardless of the lens that you choose, bring a P&S as backup if you can’t afford the money or space for a second body as well.
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