What is your favorite lens?

[Rowdy]

It is somewhat aviation related.. and a ton of us carry our gear with us for the most part. SO what is your Favorite lens for aviation related shooting? Let us know the length, brand and reason! I'll start

Canon 100mm f2.8L IS Macro. Its long enough to catch flying or takeoff and landing if you're on the ramp/dock, the IS is BRILLIANT and makes handholding supremely easy, it's light and small enough to take with me (unlike my 70-200) takes great portraits, so I can capture passengers and other pilots ugly mugs for posterity and then you can get right up close for all kinds of little details

[rocks25]

If you're shooting Nikon, I recommend their 18-200 lens... very versatile, decent low light and vibration resistance. Great overall lens.

[ahramin]

I usually have my Canon 70-200 2.8 IS and 17-55 2.8 IS plus one flash in my flight bag. Depending on where I'm going I may bring a 28-135 or a 10-22 instead of the 17-55. If you're only going to bring one lens, I'd go with the 28-135.

[FighterPilot]

Hmmm. Also varies for me. Long distance I love my 100-400mm L but closer up I use the 24-105mm L. Wouldn't mind getting something even shorter under 15mm for cabin shots.

[Rowdy]

I usually have my Canon 70-200 2.8 IS and 17-55 2.8 IS plus one flash in my flight bag. Depending on where I'm going I may bring a 28-135 or a 10-22 instead of the 17-55. If you're only going to bring one lens, I'd go with the 28-135.

The 70-200 is hard to beat!

[esp803]

Depends on the system:

Nikon FF: the Holy Trinity, 14-24, 24-70 and 70-200

Nikon DX: 10-24 Aside from soft edges a great lens bang for the buck

Canon: 24 TSE, I would literally club a baby seal with an even cuter baby seal to have this lens in a Nikon mount.... NO the Nikon is not as good.

Mamiya RZ: I was quite partial to the 210mm

These days lens are are fantastic, as are the bodies they go on. It stuns me every time I take a modern camera out for a shoot. If I had to pick just one it would be the Canon 24mm TSE hands down. With that being said I think some of my best work was done with an old manual focus Nikon 50mm f1.2 with my F3....

E

[Rowdy]

Canon: 24 TSE, I would literally club a baby seal with an even cuter baby seal to have this lens in a Nikon mount.... NO the Nikon is not as good.

Interesting choice! I happen to have one myself and it is BRILLIANTLY sharp and produces stunning images and has the perfect (for me anyways) focal length.. I find it doesnt get dragged into the airplane for a couple of reasons.. any interior or low light shots with a max ap of f3.5 its weak.. the lack of AF and its' quite heavy. If they'd tweak it to 2.8 OR give it AF and maintain that IQ I'd probably never take it off the body.

. Wouldn't mind getting something even shorter under 15mm for cabin shots.

Have you considered the recent 8-16L ? I messed around with a demo for a couple of days. Superbly fun and would be quite good in the cockpit etc.

I usually have my Canon 70-200 2.8 IS and 17-55 2.8 IS plus one flash in my flight bag. Depending on where I'm going I may bring a 28-135 or a 10-22 instead of the 17-55. If you're only going to bring one lens, I'd go with the 28-135.

I had the 17-55 myself as well and it is a great all around lens, but the copy I had was sent back twice as it kept back focusing and I moved on to other gear. Which version of the 2.8L IS do you have? I'm considering making the leap on the 70-200 if its that much of an improvement

All in all.. some great choices fellas !

[raven54]

I cart around the Sigma 10-24, makes for great cockpit shots and interesting A/C shots. For range shots I also carry the Nikkor 55-200. Would like to get the f 1.4 35 or 55...thoughts?

[ahramin]

Rowdy my 17-55 has always been flawless but when I was living in Toronto I went to the Canon service center and had my 7D microadjusted for all my lenses.

I have the series I 70-200 2.8L IS, I think the only difference with the II is the IS is massively better, but it's pretty awesome on the I anyway so I'm not about to spend the money.

[esp803]

Would like to get the f 1.4 35 or 55...thoughts

Any of the 1.4 Nikkors are fantastic, try one against the Sigma and I'll bet it will blow you away. The only down side is the 2k price tag for the 35mm.

If you're shooting Nikon, I recommend their 18-200 lens... very versatile, decent low light and vibration resistance. Great overall lens.

That is the one lens I took traveling to Africa, and it gave quite good results. There were a few occasions that I cursed the max Aperture, but with the newest generation of cameras one can simply up the ISO like never before, getting rid of some of the problem.

Rowdy, are you using the 24mm TS-E II? I've almost picked up a 5d just to use that lens. I can understand not bringing it flying, a lens like that should really live on a tripod. I'm taking the winter off from aviation to do a "little" hiking down in South America this winter, for light and portable I'm taking the Nikon 17-55mm and a 10-24 Nikon for the wide stuff.

A colleague recently ask my assistance in getting set up for a portable system for taking in airplanes. I steered him away from the trinity in favor of smaller lighter lenses. An amazing Nikon kit for portability (in my opinion) is the 10-24mm, 16-85mm, and 70-300mm. The whole kit comes in at less weight and cost of a 70-200mm, it gives you a range of focal lengths unheard of in the previous years of photography (15-450mm in 35mm terms). This comes at a sacrifice of some image quality, with that being said I would say 99% of modern camera equipment far exceeds the skill of 99% of the people in the world.

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[Youngback]

I usually bring my 8mm fisheye or the 17mm TS-E flying. The 70-200 is a bit big to go flying with and with turbulence or vibration, hard to get good clean shots unless it's air to air photos. I have the 100mm IS as well but I've almost never used it in the aircraft.

[Prairie Chicken]

My 'standard' lens is the Nikkor 18-200 mm f3.5. I opted to go a little longer than what came standard with the camera as I'd been there before & found it lacking. I use the 18-200 for 85% of my work but have to admit it's heavy & bulky.

As mentioned elsewhere, my favorite is a 105 mm f2.8 Nikkor Micro. Extremely sharp, and fast enough you can play with depth of field all day. It's also doubles as my favorite portrait lens.

The other lens I use occasionally is a Nikkor 50 mm f1.8. That's my 'pancake' lens, and while it still doesn't make a compact camera out of my D90, it does give me a reasonably small camera to tote about, with a pretty fast lens when needed. I also find the fixed focal length forces me to think more about my compositions--always a good thing.

I agree--photography pairs beautifully with flying!

[DonutHole]

I shoot sony

my go to lens is my 16-105, I find it's a great all-rounder, but I also love the 70-200 f4 milota, can't beat the colors even though is suffers slightly from CA

[Rowdy]

I usually bring my 8mm fisheye or the 17mm TS-E flying. The 70-200 is a bit big to go flying with and with turbulence or vibration, hard to get good clean shots unless it's air to air photos. I have the 100mm IS as well but I've almost never used it in the aircraft.

That 17 TS-E looks the tits! I'd love to try one out. Now if only one of the local shops had one in stock I could fiddle with for a half hour. Which 8mm fisheye? I like my sigma 4.5 circ but cant use it on FF.

I see a few of you have listed off a pile of lenses.. wasnt quite the intent I was looking for, but it is neat to see what everyone has gear wise. Maybe for comparison sake I'll list the gear lineup now and see what everyone else has?

Rowdy my 17-55 has always been flawless but when I was living in Toronto I went to the Canon service center and had my 7D microadjusted for all my lenses.

I had done the same! Sent my 7D and 17-55 off to be calibrated together. Came back the first time even worse off. Sent the lens back by itself and it came back as it had originally been. Drats. Wasnt about to put together my own setup to microadjust and well... I'm on my way to the full frame side already so I let it go.

*edited to add* Yes I've got the Canon 24L TS-E.

[Youngback]

The 8mm fish is the Samyang/Rokinon version. Fairly cheap lens but has great IQ. Only works on crop sensors though. I use it for a lot of unique flying shots within the cockpit. With the on camera flash, it gives a good highlight to the pilot while keeping the exterior exposure correct. I've got a 50D and a 5DII plus a disgusting collection of lenses I use for travel.

8mm fish
17mm TS. This lives on my 5D for street shots
24-70mm 2.8
70-200 2.8
100mm 2.8 IS
50mm 1.8

Sucks to carry but I get the shots I want.

[Rowdy]

That looks like a pretty good setup for the canon.

I'm currently rocking

Canon 24 TSE
Canon 35f.14L
Canon 50f1.2L
Canon 100f2.8L IS macro
Canon 300f4L IS
Canon 70-200f4L IS
Sigma 4.5f2.8 circ fisheye

and a lensbaby composer pro(love that thing too!).. I'll admit, the 300 and the TSE generally dont get dragged around unless I have a specific intent to use them! Its taken me what.. 3 years now to perfect that list and I've bought and sold quite a few lenses trying to align myself with what I like to and am forced to shoot The only change I'm thinking is the addition of the 16-35 and an upgrade in the 70-200 to the 2.8 IS version.. but thats just more weight to carry around at present.

[ahramin]

Get the 2.8 Rowdy.