Travel photography is a wonderful thing to do. Only, unfortunately, you can’t carry too much, which limits your lens choice. But which lens is best to take? In this article you will find an answer to the question “which lens to use for travel photography?”
This article is part of the file “What lens do I need?” Click here for information on different types of lenses.
As an avid traveler, packing has become a routine chore. Because I rely on public transportation, I can’t really take much with me, so my lens supply when traveling is very limited. By the way, the body I take with me on trips is a rather old-fashioned digital SLR: the Canon 6D. That device doesn’t weigh much and it can also take a beating, such as driving rain.
Everything I share below is based on working with this fullframe camera. These are cameras that are within the rather professional range and have a full sensor of 35 mm. Do you have a crop or APS-C sensor, then your sensor is smaller and the operation of the lens picks up differently. Users of Canon with crop sensor have a crop factor of 1.6. To reduce the effective focal length know, multiply the number in number of millimeters of your lens by 1.6. What is 80 mm on a fullframe is then 128 mm on an APS-C sensor. Nikon in turn has a crop factor of 1.5. So if you are not working fullframe, don’t forget to do your calculation.
Zoom or prime lens for travel photography?
This is a question many photographers ask themselves before packing their backpacks. A zoom lens allows you to zoom and a prime lens is a fixed lens. With a prime lens, you yourself as the photographer are actually the zoom. The advantage of a prime lens is the low f-number. The lower the number, the more light your lens can capture. The disadvantage with zoom lenses can be that they start with a slightly higher f-number. Or, if these start with a low number, they may become less bright when zoomed in. Big advantage of a zoom lens is that you don’t have to carry a whole series of lenses, only one zoom.
That’s why in travel photography I usually use both: I pack a prime and a zoom lens. The prime is great for creativity: I then have to be a zoom myself by moving forward or backward. I am actually very limited then and have to make do with the things present. This can then produce surprising images. The zoom lens also goes with me for when I go into nature or want to photograph large buildings.
Below I discuss the various options for travel photography. Good to know in advance: no single lens is ideal, it just depends on what you want and what your personal preference is.
28 mm lens for landscapes and architecture
Do you trek into nature or enjoy photographing imposing buildings? Then the 28 mm lens is your ideal companion. This is a true wide angle that allows you to capture a lot in your image. Also great for photographing land with big clouds.
The disadvantage is that perspective distortion may occur. In fact, this can happen when working with a wide-angle lens. When photographing mountain landscapes, for example, this is not immediately apparent, but it is with architecture. You can tell by the vertical lines of the buildings photographed. If you use these afterwards in photo editing program Lightroom develop, then you can correct these lines with the lens correction function and the transformation module.
50 mm lens for street photography
Do you prefer to photograph the daily life of a place you are visiting? Then you can use a 50 mm lens. By putting this lens on your body, you see through your camera almost the same thing you see through your eyes. What you see is what you get, you can see the composition with your own eyes even before you start operating your camera. You also don’t have to step forward or back if you’ve already found your framework!
Because the focal length of this lens is equal to the human field of view, no distortion occurs when using this lens. So great for photographing people. If you don’t stand too high or not too low, the body proportions are right on the button! And another advantage of this lens: it is often not so big, so you as a photographer do not stand out so much in the crowd. You already read it between the lines: this is my favorite travel lens.
80 mm or 85 mm for portraits
Do you enjoy taking close-ups of people’s faces while traveling? Then this is a fantastic lens. You can stay at a respectable distance to bring someone’s face into focus. Here you can read more about taking portrait photos. You can also use it to capture architectural details or part of a landscape.
Actually, this is a telephoto lens: what is far away is brought close. The disadvantage of this is that you sometimes have to move a long way back to photograph someone properly. This need not be a problem if you have the space. If you don’t have one, it’s better to use a 50 mm lens and get just a little closer anyway. Lens distortion also occurs when used: if you photograph with this in a large city, everything appears even closer together than in reality. So you can use this artistically, this trick is sometimes used in the film world to make a city like Brussels seem much more imposing than it really is. By the way, this works just as well in mountain areas.
Zoom lens for travel photography
If you have the space, then feel free to take the above lenses with you when traveling. But if, like me, you often take public transportation, a zoom lens can be a welcome addition to your prime lens. Then you don’t need to bring three, but only two lenses.
Zoom lenses come in all shapes and sizes. I work with a zoom from 28 to 135 mm, which immediately covers the entire range mentioned above. With the 28 mm, I can capture entire landscapes in an image, immortalize street life with the 50 mm, and take close-ups of people with the 80 to 135 mm. Only disadvantage is that this is a large lens and so I stand out tremendously. With such a zoom lens, you suddenly feel like a real tourist!
Conclusion
I summarize the above for you again below:
- There is no ideal travel photography lens, it’s all about what you want and what you feel comfortable with.
- Do you opt for a zoom lens? Then chances are you are going to be able to do anything with it. Only these are less bright than a prime lens.
- Are you going for a bright prime lens? At 28 mm you can take great landscape and architecture photos, at 50 mm you can take cool street photography and portraits, and then at 80 mm or more you can take brilliant close-ups of people and expose all kinds of details.
- A life hack is to bring a lightweight body and two lenses, consisting of your favorite prime and all-around zoom lens.
- Artistic tip: try using a zoom from 80 mm to make cities or mountains look much more imposing than they really are!