Going to Scotland next month. Is 100mm long enough to capture the Highlands or is longer better? If the latter, how long is still reasonable?
I tend to shoot longer rather than wider, but have no clue about the scale of the views in the Highlands. I'm not really interested in capturing the wide views of a lake in between mountains, but also don't want to zoom into details too much.
johnvanr wrote:
Going to Scotland next month. Is 100mm long enough to capture the Highlands or is longer better? If the latter, how long is still reasonable?
I tend to shoot longer rather than wider, but have no clue about the scale of the views in the Highlands. I'm not really interested in capturing the wide views of a lake in between mountains, but also don't want to zoom into details too much.
Thanks
I will be there next month also, probably cross paths..
johnvanr wrote:
Going to Scotland next month. Is 100mm long enough to capture the Highlands or is longer better? If the latter, how long is still reasonable?
I tend to shoot longer rather than wider, but have no clue about the scale of the views in the Highlands. I'm not really interested in capturing the wide views of a lake in between mountains, but also don't want to zoom into details too much.
Thanks
It so happens that I just returned two days ago from a 6+week visit to the UK, two weeks of which was in northwest Scotland including the Isle of Skye and a big chunk of the NC500 (north coast) area.
For those long views I’d recommend something longer than the 100mm lens. You _could_ get by with that if you are really trying to minimize gear bulk and weight, sometimes an important goal. But in my view something like a 70-200mm zoom, ideally with a 1.4x TC, will come in quite handy, both for subjects that are a bit farther away and to get constrained views of closer subjects.
I used the rough equivalent of a 24-70 a lot, but there were certainly some significant subjects that really wanted the longer lens.
(If you’ll spend time in cities, it can also be useful to carry a small prime — a slightly wide pancake lens works for me.)
Beyond that… Scotland is really wonderful. We’ve been a couple of times now — a total of probably about a month — and we love the landscape, the culture, and the people. The weather may or may not please you quite as much, depending on your preferences.
Oh, and you are going during “midge season.” If you don’t know about that, look into it. Seriously. Really. Believe me.
