I had posted prior to my trip to Rome and Florence to ask about lens selection and thought I would report on what I found worked best.
This was a trip with my daughter prior to her leaving for college. 5 days with 10 miles of walking each day. Also a train day trip to Florence.
We lucked out with weather. The best advice I can give is to hit any of the big locations prior to 7:30am. Trevi is free at that time (tickets required after 9). There are still people but not the sea of humanity that descends around 9am.
I took FAR more photos of my daughter and ended up bringing my Sony a1, Gitzo tripod (no issues using in the morning even at the Trevi) and the following lenses with percent of use for each:
16-35/4 - 16%
20-70/4 - 50%
70-200/2.8 ii - 34%
Great trip and awesome memories.
Sorry for the quality. Linking from my PhotoDeck site but the embed code for higher resolution isn't working
Nice photographs, and they take me back to some travels of my own.
I was looking at your lens use percentages and the photos, and it seems to me that almost all of those you shared were made with the wide or normal focal length lenses, with the exception of the photograph of the Florence Duomo. Is my guess correct?
gdanmitchell wrote:
Nice photographs, and they take me back to some travels of my own.
I was looking at your lens use percentages and the photos, and it seems to me that almost all of those you shared were made with the wide or normal focal length lenses, with the exception of the photograph of the Florence Duomo. Is my guess correct?
Correct.
The 16-35 was used for early morning shots including the vertical pano of the Trevi.
I had my 20-70 slung over my shoulder for most of the day.
The percentages are skewed by the 85% portraits I took...
Can't recall if I mentioned this already but I was warned by many, many people about pickpockets but, by the second morning, I was walking the streets with my Sony a1 with 16-35 on a strap over my shoulder and a tripod in hand. Did not feel unsafe at any moment.
A memorable trip and a well taken opportunity. We walked those same spots when we visited my daughter. The percentages make sense to me. When we visited her in Florence with a side trip to Rome, I had a 24-75 equivalent "kit" lens on an aps-c. At times I'd wanted wider and at times I wanted longer. OTOH, the rather small single camera and lens was very easy to deal with.
The 16-35 was used for early morning shots including the vertical pano of the Trevi.
I had my 20-70 slung over my shoulder for most of the day.
The percentages are skewed by the 85% portraits I took...
Can't recall if I mentioned this already but I was warned by many, many people about pickpockets but, by the second morning, I was walking the streets with my Sony a1 with 16-35 on a strap over my shoulder and a tripod in hand. Did not feel unsafe at any moment.
A couple of things (at least)…
First, I wondered about how you used the longer lens, since it appeared that most of your shots of city stuff used the typical medium to wide angle focal lengths. (That fits with my experience in these and similar places — when I usually just carry three small primes with angles of view equivalent to 20mm, 40mm, and 75mm.)
Pretty sure your Duomo shot was from the Piazzale Michelangelo, right? We had one of our best experiences in Florence there one summer evening, much to our surprise, as tourists who can a little cynical about such spots. :-)
Pickpockets and other kinds of thieves do exist. (We had a near miss in Venice, but saw what was happening and avoided it.) But the fear is way overdone in a lot of forums and similar. Basically you just need to be attentive, careful about your stuff, and use common sense.
A thought about that 70-200mm zoom: I stopped carrying those for travel* some years ago, instead taking a smaller prime lens that is long enough for those portrait shots. That decreased my load.
Dan
*I have to admit that I’m considering carrying the equivalent of your 70-200mm lens on an upcoming trip to the UK. We’ll be on the Isle of Skye and in northwest Scotland for a week or more and I may not want to give up that option.
When looking to the now years back 16-50 kit lens trip "really handy, convenient, small package but sometimes not wide enough and sometimes not long enough," the Piazzale Michelangelo was very much one of the "not long enough" spots. And should be on anyone's Florence trip list. Especially at sunset.
We weren't hit by pickpockets but kind of caught them in action near the Pantheon. It's a concern to be aware of but not cripple ones trip over, etc.
Craig Gillette wrote:
When looking to the now years back 16-50 kit lens trip "really handy, convenient, small package but sometimes not wide enough and sometimes not long enough," the Piazzale Michelangelo was very much one of the "not long enough" spots. And should be on anyone's Florence trip list. Especially at sunset.
We weren't hit by pickpockets but kind of caught them in action near the Pantheon. It's a concern to be aware of but not cripple ones trip over, etc.
Yeah, 16-50 would be tough for Piazzale Michelangelo, at least if you wanted to highlight any of the particularly buildings (the Duomo) or bridges. IIRc, I was carrying the Fujifilm 90mm f/2 (like 135mm of full frame) and that worked OK, though I could see using longer for that scene.
Exactly right about going to that location at sunset. I can be a bit of a cynic about going to "the places where all the tourists go," and Piazzale Michelangelo is in that category. But we had an utterly magical evening there at sunset. While waiting people began spontaneously singing along with a simple street musician — I still get the tingly down the spine just recalling it.
