What lens(es) do you carry with you?

I have 3 modes - Light 10D and 24-105, Medium 10D, 24-105 100mm macro and 50mm and Heavy - all equip - now in a Tamrak exp 7. The 24-105 f4L is an always lens. some days I wish this was f2.8

Usually I carry the 24-105L, supplemented by a Sigma 20mm and Canon 50-200L. But if I know I am going to photograph buildings I will add my 35/2.0 and 24/2.8 primes as well. They are so small and light they add very little extra burden.

My 24-105L is always with me, most versatile lens I have. But, the 17-55 is making quite an impression on me

I carry just about every lens i have with me every time..... you never know what tou might find, and what lens you might need.....

17-40mm f4 L, 70-200mm f2.8L, 18-55mm with fisheye attached.
Then i carry everything else aswell! normally my whole kit!

I generally have the 24-70L on the 5D, and the 70-200 L IS on the 20D. I take my primes if I know there something specific that I'm going to shoot.

OK let me interrupt...this is all great information and now I need to know how you manage things when you need to change lenses. If you are out on a walk or in a state park and you find that one shot is a landscape and the next is a close-up of a bird, etc.. then how do you handle this? I guess I am also asking about (and I know this could be a thread all its own) how the lenses and accessories are carried?

If you are going to a shoot or someplace where you can settle down and put your bag down then I guess some of those great camera bags work. I also see some use bags like the Tamrac backpacks and those look really great but again I have to wonder how you handle your lens changes.

I assume the camera is on a strap around your neck with a lens mounted. When you need to change lenses do you have have to take the pack off, open the main compartment and make the change or is the pack carried or mounted in such a way that you can just reach your hand in somehow and grab what you need, putting back what you no longer need.

I am concerned about the time it takes when you just don't know what you will see or want to shoot and in many cases the time it would take to swap lenses will make you miss the shot.

300D + 18-50EX and an extra battery and extra memory card.

I carry two bodies now. After going to the mountains and discovering how many shots I wasnt taking because I didnt want to change my lens to take that shot I bought a used 10D. I now have a wide lens and a telephoto lens with me all the time. My "wide" lens is usually the 17-40 L (Or my Old School 28-80 L) and I will used one of my white lenses on the 20D. I only keep the lenses I use. If I do not use them I sell them (except my 50mm lens, whats the point?).

I usually carry two cameras, one with a long lens, one with a shorter mounted. I try to be prepared for whatever needs the faster reaction - you don't have time to change lenses if a bird shows up, but you can change lenses for a landscape.

Backpacks is IMHO mainly useful for longer walks as it's a pain to get at the equipment, I use one when I need to walk a longer distance and then I basically lay it down somewhere and set up my tripod etc. For shorter walks I very much prefer a top-loaded waist pack or larger shoulder/waist bag, it's so much easier to reach lenses etc. I tend to set the bag down close to my feet at any opportunity to relieve the shoulders.

Generally speaking I try to avoid carrying anything (other than the cameras while I'm using them) on my neck/shoulders if I can avoid it, and my larger backpack has a good waist belt to redistribute the load. If the ground is even (like for some motorsports) I sometimes even use a luggage cart so I don't have to carry anything at all.

Sounds like you can justify a second body in those statements alone . LOL

All joking aside, yes that is a difficult thing for me as well. If I had the resources to get a second body I wouldn't hesitate. But as things are, I know that I might miss something by having the wrong lens on at the wrong time. But I just have to deal with it. I could probably solve the focal length problem with a wide zoom lens like a 28-300 or something similar, but I would have to sacrifice other elements that mean more to me (IQ, aperture).

Hope that makes sense.

BTW: If I go with just the camera and no bag, I'll have the 70-200 90% of the time. The other 10% being the 24-70. But it all depends on what I am doing .

Travis

Travis, the other (unpopular, I may add ) option for TMR is to get 28-300L lens. I had many lenses and tried various combinations for walk-around or to have on me at all times. Eventually I ended up with the setup I currently have: 28-300L for everything and 50 f/1.4 for low-light situations. I experimented with 16-35, 24-70, 70-200 IS, 85L II, and others, but I feel that my current setup covers me for all my needs. I'm getting a Sigma 150mm to try it out, but not planning to carry it with me all the time. I strongly suspect that I'll get a 70-200 IS soon enough to have it in my arsenal for portaits, but with the quality I get with my 28-300 I really need to prove it to myself that I need anything else. This lens (28-300L) is the best and worst thing that happened to me - I love everything about it and it really takes away the need to acquire more gear, though I always want to.

My apologies to the OP for the narcissistic hijack of the thread

I usually carry everything in my gear list with me but in those rare occasions where I only take one lens, I tend to take the 24-105mm f/4L IS now. It used to be the 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5, and before that the Tokina 12-24mm f/4. I have, however, walked around with just a Bigma or just the 300mm f/4L IS

Yeh I missed a great shot of a Kingfisher because I had a 10-22 on the camera. I did not have the 300 f4 IS with me, but it was good light and I could have got something with the 200 f2.8 + 2X, but the bird did not wait around - that's life. It's also why the real wildlife photogs spend lots of time studying the animal and setting up hids etc.

This is why I like slingshot 200 - I don't have to take it off to change lens. However a traditional bag of backpack is probably less fiddily once you have it on the floor.

I carry two bodies as well to avoid the lens swap