My holiday photos & lens choices…..
With my husband and I both running business, we find the best time of year to go away on holiday is over the Christmas period. For the last 2 years we have visited Sharm El Sheik to get some winter sun and to indulge our love of snorkelling. I posted my images on my Facebook page and had a lot of wonderful comments from fellow photographers and I was asked the question of which lenses I took and why. I have a LOT of lenses (you can never have too many I say) and decided this year I wanted less weight in my handluggage so took only my 24-70 2.8L and my 135 2.0L.
The 24-70 really is my go to lens when out and about when I can’t control the environment. This is the lens I used in most of my holiday photos including around the pool, on our boat trip and generally to take out in the evenings. I like separation in my images, so most of the ones shown below were taken at the lowest aperture 2.8.
Feeling brave, I then put my beloved Canon 5diii and the 24-70L into a Dicapac Waterproof DSLR case when we visited the beach. Firstly this case is great as it protects the camera from general sand and water, but also because it can be fully immersed. The only disadvantage is you can’t really see what you are shooting, and changing ISO etc is too difficult once the camera is inside the case. In the end I took a number of test shots on different settings, then sealed the case properly.
The reason we chose our hotel this year (Jaz Mirabel Beach ) was so we could walk straight out from our beach onto a reef to easily see the amazing Red Sea fish. The images below were taken with my camera ( inside the Dicapac) and the water was only waist height. It’s amazing how may fish were in the shallows of the beach.
This is another great example of the range of the 24-70, and why I use this lens on holiday so much. This is the lens at both end of the focal spectrum, at 24mm and at 70mm. It allowed me to get the sea and land in behind, and also gave me a close up the subjects with more background separation.
I also allowed myself to pack only ONE prime lens and I decided to take my absolute favourite the 135 2.0 L. The separation and sharpness this lens delivers is superb, and it really fits with my style of shooting. I quite enjoy being a bit further away from my subjects allowing me to observe whats going on. Two of my favourite images were taken on this lens in the beautiful evening light. I hope that is a useful insight into the lenses I pack to take on holiday.
To see the Red Sea in all of its glory, take a look at this video of the diving in Sharm El Sheik.
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