timpdx
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I just booked a trip to Southern India an hour ago  , which will be my second trip to the country. I went to all the places you are planning to visit in 2009/10.
Here is my experience, and my opinions:
Equipment was a 5D, 24-105 and 24LII along with an E-P1 for backup and tele (Panasonic 90-400 equiv)
IMO street portraits happen so fast, like you are going to stop, swap lenses and then take the photo.....not. Unless you are going to walk around all day with just a prime mounted, I would skip it unless you are into night photography, then by all means. But every portrait that I was happy with was taken with the 24-105 and the moments happened waaaaay too fast to even think about switching lenses.
This trip, I am strongly considering leaving the 24LII at home, even though I loved shooting with it at night, just too wide to make for interesting pics. This time my new and sharp 50/1.8 will go, it performed above my expectations when I went to Japan in December for my night photos.
You don't need more than 24 at the Taj or the Forts in Delhi, Agra or Jaipur. But you will want the ability to isolate, see Don Clary's notes above, they seem to match my exif data when I just quickly looked through my shots.
I brought the E-P1 for the tele and hardly used it, I was only happy with a couple of distant shots in Jodhpur, and I used it for some fun 720p videos, too. Playing with video was fun, actually.
So my India kit this time will likely be the 5DII, 24-105, 50/1.8 and either my NEX3 or just an S95 for backup and to mess with video again.
I travel light, I have never done an international trip with more than 2 lenses for my main camera and I also always take a competent backup, the E-P1 then or the NEX now.
If I had a crop body, for SURE I would take the 15-85IS and then a second lens depending on what you shoot, like a prime for night (on a crop, the Sigma 30 is simply great, that is what I used on my 7D when I went around the world) The 17-55 is great, but 17 is not wide enough, IMO, on a crop body.
I also shot a number of panos for vast landscapes or wide shots of the Rajasthan forts.
My India shots are here:
http://www.pixelmap.com/sl_india.html
all night shots and portraits are with the 24LII, the rest is 24-105 action and maybe 2 of those shots are E-P1. All the photos are not clickable yet, but many are.
India is probably my favorite place to photo, the people are very receptive to portraits, the cities are endlessly fascinating, the textures, architecture and street life are simply the best in the world (well, maybe Cairo street life can match India, but the people there don't take well to portraits).
The best shots of the Jaipur Amber Fort were fired from the taxi, there was not many place to pull over, so I had to hammer away on the shutter to get these views of the complete fort. (so keep that in mind and warn your driver that you will want to pull over when you can, my driver just wanted to get is money and drop me up at the entrance)
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