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Heading out on a Caribbean cruise in a few weeks. I have a wide angle & walk around lens. I’m wondering which prime a 35, 50 or 85 would be the best addition for my D500 - a crop sensor.

 

 

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If your walkaround lens covers wide to short telephoto, you may want to take the 50mm for isolating features on the ship. my most-used lenses on a cruise are the 18-105 (previously a 16-50), a 12mm and in Alaska, a telephoto.

 

Less is more when travelling and the fewer lens changes, the better...IMHO.

 

Dave

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I assume they're all fast primes?

 

Normally, I'd say take the 85mm so you have a little distance. The Caribbean isn't like Alaska. Long telezooms aren't really needed. It's more of a wide angle type place.

 

It kind of depends on how fast your wide angle is and what that walkaround zoom range is. If they're more basic type lenses, I'd take the 35mm prime. Yeah, it's on the wide side, but assuming it's a really fast one (f1.8 or lower), that's what you'll use a lot indoors and stuff and on a crop sensor, it's like the nifty 50 for full frame. That might be the one lens you use the most.

 

On cruises, since your hotel room travels around with you and you're never too far away from it, that's when I think you should bring along all your gear. You just limit yourself while out on excursions and stuff.

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I assume they're all fast primes?

 

Normally, I'd say take the 85mm so you have a little distance. The Caribbean isn't like Alaska. Long telezooms aren't really needed. It's more of a wide angle type place.

 

It kind of depends on how fast your wide angle is and what that walkaround zoom range is. If they're more basic type lenses, I'd take the 35mm prime. Yeah, it's on the wide side, but assuming it's a really fast one (f1.8 or lower), that's what you'll use a lot indoors and stuff and on a crop sensor, it's like the nifty 50 for full frame. That might be the one lens you use the most.

 

On cruises, since your hotel room travels around with you and you're never too far away from it, that's when I think you should bring along all your gear. You just limit yourself while out on excursions and stuff.

 

 

 

Thanks. I agree about all the gear. So many photo opportunities. My travel camera bad ( which I use as a carry on) has only so much space. The primes are all fast. I like the 85 the best but the 35 might be best for those indoor shots.

 

Maris

 

 

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If your walkaround lens covers wide to short telephoto, you may want to take the 50mm for isolating features on the ship. my most-used lenses on a cruise are the 18-105 (previously a 16-50), a 12mm and in Alaska, a telephoto.

 

 

 

Less is more when travelling and the fewer lens changes, the better...IMHO.

 

 

 

Dave

 

 

 

Thanks Dave.

 

 

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On our recent cruise I had a 18-55 and 55-200. More often than I would have liked I had the wrong lens on. Most of the time I wasn't carrying the other lens and foot zoom was not always possible. Before our next cruise I want to pick up a 28-300 and that should take care of everything without having to worry about which lens to have on. Of course I could be wrong ;(

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I'm planning on getting one of Olympus' travel zoom lenses - probably their 12-100 f4 [equivalent to 24-200 for full frame].

 

Me too for the 12-100 Olympus zoom with my only concern being the f4 low setting. I take two zoom lenses (12-40 and 40-150 mm) and a Canon S120 P&S I carry at all times for all of those low-light ship interior shots, food pics, and spur-of-the-moment photo ops.

 

I have taken primes on previous cruises and never used them so I added a pair of good binoculars to their spot in my camera case.

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Only a few more days to go. I’m not crazy about the 35 for some reason but I think I’ll go for it as my 4th lens.

I'm not familiar with the Nikon (or third-party) 35, but I'd almost guess you "need" a 24 so that after crop factor you're getting (about) a 35. I find 35mm to be so much fun on full-frame: you have to be decisive on what to include/exclude in the frame, but you can tell so many great stories. With a 50 on a crop behaving like a 75, or an 85 behaving like a 130, you're (in my opinion) a lot more in the "singular theme" zone, which nails home that one theme but runs the risk of omitting the rest of the story.

 

Now that I own the Canon 35, a lot of my other lenses are collecting dust.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Heading out on a Caribbean cruise in a few weeks. I have a wide angle & walk around lens. I’m wondering which prime a 35, 50 or 85 would be the best addition for my D500 - a crop sensor.

 

 

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I'd think about the 35mm in the islands (not big panoramas like the Teton or Grand Canyon)....50mm equiv. full sensor, what your eyes see, great for candid, street etc.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I returned from our cruise just over 3 weeks ago. I did take 4 lenses. I didn’t even put the 35 on the camera. I guess I was considering using it for food photos but neglected to take any. Have 2 years to plan for our next trip.

 

Maris

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Crop sensor? My vote is the 35.

 

After hearing from a Fellow Cruise Critic member about your cameras, lenses & photography skills I followed links to your images. Wow! The wildlife; birds, bears, whales, the landscape photos, interior ship photos & even the food are all amazing.

Thanks for sharing.

 

Maris

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For my D500 in the Caribbean I carry

 

A 35mm prime (not a fancy one - kit lens grade, it does fine) f1.4 for night/low light shots - I used to carry my Sigma 1.4 50mm art but honestly didn't use it that much and its heavy

Tamron 18-400 (My goto carry now for day shots)

Sigma Art 24-105 (Until I got the Tamron this was my primary as it works awesome on sunny days - now its my onboard primary camera).

 

Overall, I haven't found a prime to be a critical piece of kit for island travel, but I am also not a big prime user anyway.

 

I also carry a Sony a6000 with an 18-55 kit as a pocket camera.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My kit for this cruise to the Caribbean is Fuji ex-1 with a 35mm 1.4 and 10-24mm. I keep toying with bringing the 27mm pancake as a even smaller, easier to carry camera. Will also have my gopro (silver 4) and Samsung gear 360 (new toy to play with). 1st cruise in over 30 years so what do I know?

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My kit for this cruise to the Caribbean is Fuji ex-1 with a 35mm 1.4 and 10-24mm. I keep toying with bringing the 27mm pancake as a even smaller, easier to carry camera. Will also have my gopro (silver 4) and Samsung gear 360 (new toy to play with). 1st cruise in over 30 years so what do I know?

 

LOL. Good 1st post and welcome!

 

Ken

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My kit for this cruise to the Caribbean is Fuji ex-1 with a 35mm 1.4 and 10-24mm. I keep toying with bringing the 27mm pancake as a even smaller, easier to carry camera. Will also have my gopro (silver 4) and Samsung gear 360 (new toy to play with). 1st cruise in over 30 years so what do I know?

 

Lots of cameras. I’m back from our cruise. I did end up taking my 10-20, 16- 70. I used both a lot. I also had my kit 55-200 & got nice shots in good light. I took my 35 but never put it on the camera. I do think I’ll borrow my daughter’s Sony rx100 to take food photos on our next cruise but I have a long time to think about it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I use a full frame Canon 5D mk3 and my go to lenses are the 70-200 f2.8 and 24-105 MkII. I find those 2 lenses cover most requirements.

 

For our next World Cruise I will also take the 16-35 f2.8 and the 2x converter I purchased for safaris.

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So I was just asking myself the same question. We’re doing a 10day Med cruise on NCL in Aug. I have a Nikon D850, and I was thinking of bringing 3 Lens:

50mm 1.4

12-24mm 1.8

70-200mm 2.8

 

I’d really like to bring a 24-70mm 2.8 to use on ship and as a walkabout, but I think the 50mm will have to do. Also bringing my travel tripod and monopod.

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So I was just asking myself the same question. We’re doing a 10day Med cruise on NCL in Aug. I have a Nikon D850, and I was thinking of bringing 3 Lens:

50mm 1.4

12-24mm 1.8

70-200mm 2.8

 

I’d really like to bring a 24-70mm 2.8 to use on ship and as a walkabout, but I think the 50mm will have to do. Also bringing my travel tripod and monopod.

 

On our Caribbean cruise, I took my d500 with my 35, 16-80 for walk around, 10-20 & 55-200. I was very pleased with my photos. The d500 isn’t a full frame of course so the 35 would be like your 50. I never put the 50 on the camera. It was much handier just taking the 16-80 on excursions & using it with the tripod on the ship and using the 55-200 as we came in to port.

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