What ideal lenses for trip to Thailand

[madman045]

I will be heading to Thailand in just over five weeks time (Wedding is the day before)

I was wondering what the ideal lense or lenses would be for a trip like this?

Two things we are definately doing is the Royal Palace and an elephant safari

I only have the kit lense that came with my 400D and a 90-300mm if i wanted to, but i dont think I would really use it.

I was thinking of maybe the 50mm F1.8 as there very cheap to get.

Has anyone been to Thailand before with photo's in mind?

Thanks

Andy

[chrestomanci]

I went to Sri-Lanka on Honeymoon. My wife and I took at Nikon D70 with the 18-70 Kit lens and a cheap 70-300 Zoom. I guess in many ways Thailand will be similar.

Anyway, what lenses you need depends on what you will be doing. My wife and I found that for the sights, the 18-70 Kit lens was fine, though there where a few occasions when something wider would have been nice.

The Budist attitude to photography in temples and holy sites was a bit unexpected. Basically they have no problem with people photographing buda statues, shrines etc, so long as you photograph the statue, and not you standing next to it. The photograph has to be of the religious item, not of you.

What other lenses you need will depend on what you are doing, and how much your wife will tolerate you doing lots of photography. If you will be doing wildlife safaris or tours, then you will need as long a lens as possible, with the best aperture you can get. Most interesting wildlife comes out at dusk when you will struggle to get anything decent with the f5.6 maximum aperture of cheap zoom lenses. (The auto focus will hunt badly as well). In those situations you may be better off using the 50mm f1.8, and then cropping, though if you can stretch to a telephoto prime with a good maximum aperture then even better, snag is, a 300mm f2.8 IS, will cost a fortune, but that is what you want if you can afford it.

The other thing you might consider is a good flash gun. On a more recent trip to South Africa, I took this photo of a Leopard at Dusk using my 70-300mm zoom. It was only possible because I was also using a powerfull flash gun that illuminated her, so I could use a decent shutter speed.

[Hans Voralberg]

Like Chres said, might be a good idea to invest in a wide lens cause there might be interesting scenery / architecture. I often go to Vietnam, which is pretty similar to Thailand and my gear would be Tokina 12-24 for landscape, 50 as walk-around and 90mm Macro for flowers

[madman045]

Thanks to you both, looks like im stuck with the kit lens then..

Hans you have a good selection of kit, also out of my league price wise for quite some time (cant see selling the mrs off working!)

[Hans Voralberg]

Thanks to you both, looks like im stuck with the kit lens then..

Hans you have a good selection of kit, also out of my league price wise for quite some time (cant see selling the mrs off working!)

Kit lens will be ok for general shooting and 90-300 is ok for portrait, bit tight but might do, also flowers and candids maybe ?

[merdat]

Ya , 70-300 plus standard with do the job fine.