Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/01/21

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Subject: [Leica] Bolivia, Peru and the Amazon - advice requested
From: kcassidy at asc.upenn.edu (Kyle Cassidy)
Date: Mon Jan 21 20:14:57 2008

At 6:41 PM -0600 1/20/08, Clive Moss wrote:

>I am planning to take a D300 with 18-200 zoom, and a D200 with 12-24
>zoom, plus a 35mm f/2 in case it gets really dark.  The M8 feels not
>quite the right thing for this trip, so it stays at home.

the 18-200, while so seductive in terms of zoom range, i think gives you a 
sad available DOF. you might not have (nor have the inkling to get) the 
80-200 2.8 which i think is the real workhorse of photojournalism these days 
(i probably take 30% of my photos with it) but there are moderate telephotos 
with nice apertures you should get.

about five years ago i found a manual focus 100mm f 2.8 vivitar series I 
macro (1:1) at a yard sale for $40. i probably didn't get that great a deal 
on it, but it's a lens i use ALL THE TIME. the macro is wonderful, and as a 
portrait lens ... oh la la ... as they say in france (can any french luggers 
confirm this?) great great great shallow DOF at f 2.8 and ... for you lens 
people, it's extremely sharp.

with your d300 you can use lots of the old manual focus nikon primes to your 
great advantage.

the 12-24 i agree with completely, and the 35 f2.

myself, i may be inclined to leave the d200 behind and bring a point and 
shoot as a backup. after all, it's vacation. you don't want to be hauling 
gear all day. unless you can convince your wife to carry ones of them.......

hope this helps

kc

--
www.kylecassidy.com

Replies: Reply from clive.moss at gmail.com (Clive Moss) ([Leica] Bolivia, Peru and the Amazon - advice requested)