No one likes to carry heavy photo equipment. Especially not on a trip. So what could be more obvious than to use a universal zoom with a focal length range of, let’s say, 28 – 300 mm. With this focal length range, you can indeed capture most subjects you encounter on the road without any problems. One lens for everything, so to speak.
These lenses with a very wide focal length range are sometimes disparagingly referred to as “soup zooms” in German. Because they supposedly do not deliver decent image quality. I cannot judge whether this is true. We don’t have any of these lenses. But that has nothing to do with the actual or perceived image quality of these lenses. Of course, I also want to travel with little equipment. Which means such a superzoom would not be bad. But even if there was …
…the ultimate 1:2.8 / 16 – 500 mm lens with integrated coffee maker…
…for an unbeatable price, I would still have at least a second lens with me. The reason for this is quite simple: something breaks on what feels like every third trip. It’s just stupid that you never know on which third trip this happens.
A true story about that.
On a trip to the castles on the Rhine and Moselle in Germany, our “bread-and-butter lens”, the 1:4 / 24 – 105 mm, refused to cooperate on the very first day. Cleaning the contacts brought no improvement. Even the reference to contractual obligations was ignored on the part of the lens.
Here is the last photo taken on this trip with said lens:
Well, what the heck, we still had the 24 – 70 mm with us. So we could (almost) continue working as usual.
The next day we were out in the vineyards above Bingen. I tripped on a wet stone staircase and the camera and the 1:2.8 / 70 – 200 mm lens fell out of my hand. Ouch! For the sake of completion, here is the last photo with this lens:
Ok, not particularly exciting for a final photo….
But of course we still had a spare lens with us. Not the same focal length range, but still. Oh yes, and we also had another camera body.
It was only on the Rhine
Without spare equipment we would have had to end the trip on the second day (well, we might have been able to do the one or other wine tasting without a camera…). Now we were only at the Rhine, so about 5 hours drive from home. But for a long distance trip the situation would have been very annoying. The costs for flight, rental car, hotel and food would still have been incurred. If you then come back as a travel photographer completely without photos, it’s not only a zero, but you also paid on top.
Conclusion
As handy as superzooms are, you still need a spare lens. At least for us, it still doesn’t work without lugging some equipment…
Yes, I know, everything is better or at least lighter with mirrorless cameras. But you know, I still can’t really get used to the electronic viewfinders.
As always I’m looking forward to your comments.
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