Great advice so far - I'll echo it. If you're going to go with two lenses, take your 70-200mm f/4L IS and rent the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS (the latter is IMO the best general purpose zoom for a 1.6x FOVCF body). If you have room/budget for a third lens, rent the EF-S 10-22mm.


Quote Originally Posted by nimo956
I've never shot with a wide-angle lens before though, so I'm not sure if I'll know how to get the best pictures out of it right away

Have you shot anything wider than 70mm regularly? As Mark's shot of the church so nicely shows, 17mm on your 40D is reasonably wide, and will work for most situations. Personally, I'd consider a 10-22mm only in addition to something the 17-55mm, not instead of it. 22-70mm will be too big of a gap in that region of the focal range.


If you take the 17-55mm, you'll probably find that you'll leave that on your camera 80% or more of the time.


Have a great trip!


--John