Recommendation for Lenses to Pack for National Park Roadtrip

Hi All! My wife and I are going on the road next month for a 14 day NP vacation. I am planning to do mostly landscape photography and am having a hard time deciding which lenses to bring. I only want to bring two. My gear list is below, and I am open to purchasing a different lens if it is recommended.

Camera - Canon M3
M Series - 18-55mm - 3.5-5.6 - IS
M Series - 11-22mm - 4-5.6 - IS
M Series - 22mm - 2
EF Series - 17-40mm - 4
EF Series - 50mm - 1.8
Tamron - 28-75mm - 2.8
EF-EOS M Adapter
Manfrotto Tripod

Any recommendations?

I don't shoot with an M series camera so take things with a grain of salt.
I wouldn't think about doing a NP tour without taking a telephoto lens. Even doing primarily landscapes there are times you are going to want to be closer to your subject that you are not going to be able to without getting off the trail ( not usually a good idea depending upon which park ). I think the 100-400 v2 is a great multi purpose lens even for landscapes and you can use it for wildlife that you will encounter as well.
Enjoy the trip and be sure to share some of your pictures.

If you only want to take two I would take the widest and the longest lenses that you have.

If you are doing landscapes, get a EF 70-200 F4 to complement your wider lenses. It's an incredible lens. I never leave home without it. That should enable you to get some telephoto landscape shots or stitch shots together to get wider scenes.

You are driving, right? Take everything you have. The car can handle the weight!

For landscape photography trips I like to have coverage of 14mm-600mm (35mm equivalent), which for me is 14-24, 24-70, 70-200 and 150-600. If I am consolidating lenses I go with 14-24, 24-105, 150-600. Looking at your lenses I think I would go with the 11-22, 28-75 and maybe rent a lens for longer coverage. Three lenses on a road trip seems doable

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My favorite landscape lens on a full frame is my Canon 100-400mm zoom.

On your crop body, the 55-250mm would give a similar field of view. . If I were you, I would look into buying one ..... they're so inexpensive that I wouldn't bother borrowing or renting one, when one can be purchased so inexpensively.


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Which national parks? Depending on which parks, be sure you are familiar with which ones have a timed entry system. You don’t want to pull a Clark W. Griswold. I would not venture to Zion without a wide angle, always have a zoom at Rocky Mountain, and both at Arches and Capital Reef.

Heya,

I too would suggest picking up a 55-250 STM lens. They're inexpensive and distant landscape screams for telephoto. I wouldn't even take an ultrawide unless you plan on being on top of your subject matter, otherwise, taking an image of distant vistas is going to result in dwarfing everything to the point of it mostly being foreground/sky and your mountain or other subject is just a tiny subject somewhere in there.

18-55 & 55-250 would be what I would take.

Very best,

ct1co2 wrote in post #19102781
Which national parks?

I echo the question.

I might add, that most of the national park “.gov” websites specific to any given park have photography guides. Simply do a google search and review the hits. Googling “Yellowstone photography” (with the quotes) for instance will yield the content at https://www.nps.gov …yourvisit/photo​graphy.htm.

I also note that many have stated bring some form of telephoto, which I also support. The link I provided has an interesting comment.

Good advice!

You said road trip, right? If in a car, take them all. If a motorcycle then you need to pare it down some. I echo, in general a wide and a long. Then is there something special like a macro lens you might want?

EF 24-105 L
EF 100-400 L