Lens recommendation for Hiking

[Vicreo A Legarreta]

Hi there, planning my yearly 4 day hike in the middle of this month, and planning to the take my Canon T6i with me, and the question is which lens to take, love to take pictures of wile life and scenery, searching on Google all point for the 50mm 200mm lens, I got this lenses at hand, a 50mm, 10mm 18mm, 55mm 250mm, and a 18mm 55mm, can't take all lenses and I will not used them all-time, so the question if for the expertise, which one would you prefer to take on a 4 day hike, considering that weight is limited, but to sacrifice for good photos, thanks for any input.

 

[hikingff77]

I know this probably doesn't help, but I'd take something with the best all around range. Something like a 55 - 200 and then a smaller, prime type lens. My wife and I recently went out to Olympic NP and I had my telephoto zoom and a 18 - 55 lens. It was a nightmare switching out one for the other. Major time killer and fun killer. I only wished I had a more versatile lens. It sounds like you've got a pretty complete set.

 

[Joe917]

Personally (having lugged dslr's hundreds of miles) I would take the 18-55. The 55-250 is a little short for wildlife and not wide enough for landscapes. If your heart is set on the 55-250(maybe you are hiking a great wildlife area) consider packing the 18-55 too.

 

[mtnbike28]

I hike with 2 lenses on my crop sensor dSLR - 18-135 and 55-300. The 18-135 is on the camera full time while hiking and the long lens is in a pouch on my waist strap ready to switch as needed. I am thinking of switching to the 18-55 because it is shorter/smaller. I own prime glass and 2.8 zooms, for hiking I like the kit lenses for weight range with 2 lenses.

 

[Vicreo A Legarreta]

thanks guys for the fast response, I am willing to take 2 lense, and for you all recomendations I will order a soft case for the other lens, will take the 18-55 and the 55-250, and will report back from my hike, again thank for the fast respons.

 

[Kerensky97]

That's what I do for my hikes too. I think Prime lenses are better if you have the room for a bunch, but when hiking or if space is a premium I like good zoom lenses covering my favorite focal lengths.

Some people say that they like how a prime forces them to be creative to catch a shot they want with a different focal length., and that's all well and good when your whole kit is 20ft away in a vehicle or massive camera bag. But if I don't know what I may come across I want flexibility.

 

[Vicreo A Legarreta]

order a case from amazon, any experience with this case?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TZUS98/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and some Lens Pouch, only gonna use one.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XJQWSL2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Pathfinder]

I would choose the current Tamron 16-300mm lens. It is for crop bodies only, but it is wide enough for some landscape work, and long enough for some wildlife and small and light and fairly inexpensive. It is sharp as well. Most of my images were captured with a Canon 70D or a 7D MK II

Since the zoom range is so large, you never really need to swap lenses in the field, hence your sensor will stay cleaner to boot. Used with LightRoom it will have no color aberrations and the images sharpen very nicely.

I have had mine for about 2 years now and have over 8500 frames captured with it, on land, sea, and glacier surfaces.

I have a few images shot with the Tamron 16-300mm lens here so you can see the lenses potential and image quality - https://pathfinder.smugmug.com/Other/16-300-Tamron-Zoom/

 

[Vicreo A Legarreta]

arrive last night, the case work fine for the first 2 days until one of the attach points fail and came off, and for the most time use the 18-55 mm lens, I will post some of the pictures taken of my trip, pathfinder for the look of your pic I will be looking for a tamron lens, thank all for the info

 

[Pathfinder]

Happy to help. It is not a perfect lens for everything , but for many things and a walk around "only lens" tool, I really like it.

 

[LivinDaDream]

Vicreo,

I haven't tried the lens that Pathfinder mentions, but I do have a Tamron 24-70 f2.8 FF lens for Nikon and couldn't be happier with it.

To your original question, my "walking around" kit for traveling light is a D3200 Nikon, an 18-300mm Nikon DX lens and a 12-24mm f4 Nikon DX lens. I will admit that an 18-200mm would save a fair amount of weight and with a crop sensor body, you would still have plenty of reach for most situations, not to mention saving a few hundred dinero!

For hiking, you could probably forego the short zoom, but I found it very useful indoors or in urban settings to capture a wider field of view where the 18mm of the long zoom wasn't as wide as I would have wished, especially when considering the 1.5x multiplication factor with an APS-C sensor (1.6 w/Canon).

Saw your photos from your hike, looks like a great trip.

 

[Joe917]

The original question was what lens to choose from what the OP had. If we are suggesting new lenses and hiking will be the main activity I would suggest none of the above. Its time to go mirrorless before you invest too much in a DSLR system.

 

[grogie]

^At work, in part I oversee equipment, including cameras for staff to use at event coverage. I have tired out several very nice Sony mirrorless cameras as the quality is really nice. Interesting enough, I find that staff just handles the smaller Sony cameras differently over our larger DSLRs (T3i, T6i and two SL1s). Both of the Sony cameras have been dropped and banged on (one bad enough that it was killed), as staff tends to want to carry them in their pocket or with just the supplied hand strap vs. using the neck strap on the DSLRs. (Yeah I know ... put neck straps on all future cameras!)

Personally, I have a small sling style camera bag for a Canon SL2, and although larger then the original 18-55, my favorite lens is an 18-135 for that added range. At times I'll also carry a 70-300, but it's big sucker!

 

[Vicreo A Legarreta]

did not mine to carry the extra load, but I like the idea of one lens, instead of 2 lens, the tamron look like a real good one for my purpose, the mirrorles would be my 2 option but they see like flimsy, to high tech cameras like point and shoot only, don get me wrong they are real good ones, I start it with a fujifilm coolpix camera and now got me a t6i and still learning how to use it, remember my dad using a roll camera and putting filter, changing lens went the run out film and talking of time exposure, now I know of what he was talk, in a couple of months will be going on a 4 days hike hope the get me a tamron lens, again thank all for the tip's, sorry for my bad english.

 

[Vicreo A Legarreta]

just order a tamaron af 28-300mm