Ultimate Supertelephoto for Travel

[Kayaker72]

Thanks Scott. It is good to hear someone is interested in this rabbit hole I've chosen to go down.

So, I have a fundamental problem in that I haven't had much time to shoot lately. Work, personal life, family, etc is keeping me pretty busy. But I have had time at different random moments internet a number of different things...

So, I thought it would be interesting to look at how other photographers have built their kits. What do they use.

I actually started with a few people from different forums:

• Bryan--- https://www.the-digital-picture.com/...nd-Lenses.aspx
• From CR-Grant Atkinson: https://www.grantatkinson.com/my-gear
• David Lloyd (Nikon shooter): https://davidlloyd.net/about/

And a few others....But then I decided to check out Canon Explorers of Light (EOL) and the equivalents in the EU. As I am looking at a wildlife lens, I tried to focus on wildlife photographers. For the EOLs, it was easy as I simply looked at each photographer under their "Wildlife" genre. For EU, for some, it was more of a guess, so I may have missed a few there. But, 5 in the US, 5 in the EU, what I hope is a reasonable sampling is summarized it in the following table:

A couple of things jumped out at me:

1. 15 mm fisheye?? This is the second most popular lens. Wow.
   
2. Zooms vs Primes. You have to think, these are the types of people Canon is going to be consulting when planning.
   
   1. Technically, more primes were owned. But look a bit more closely.
      
   2. I do not see a single "holy trinity" of primes, yet most has some version of the holy trinity of zooms (gray).
      
   3. Primes are mostly what I would consider "specialty" lenses: macros, TSE and, of course, supertele. I am sure this would change if I looked at portrait photographers, for example.
      
   4. There is a difference in favor between most US EoLs and EU photographers.
      
   5. Very interesting as this is the direction I have settled in as well: Zooms for most work, primes for specialty purposes.
   
   
   
3. Everyone in the US has the 100-400 II. Most owned lens.
   
4. Could be that the webpage hasn't been updated, but there are selective about new lenses, lots of old gear. What was interesting, is I was seeing newer bodies (1DXII, 5DIVs, and 5DsRs). But there were some Mk 1 versions of the superteles. All the 16-35 f/2.8's was the version II, not III, etc.
   
5. There is a real efficiency to most of the kits. Right there around 8 lenses.

As for the supertele lenses I have been looking at:

Couple of interesting things:

• Technically, the 500 f/4 is used more by the photographers I looked at, but really...pretty close between the 500 f/4 and 600 f/4.
• I was surprised to see people still using the 800 f/5.6 as I've considered it pretty well established that the 600 f/4 II plus 1.4TC is actually a bit better. But, 3 photographers in EU still list it.
• Really surprised to see only two people using the 200-400 +TC and only one using the 400 f/2.8 II.
• Not a single 400 DO II

So, if you are interested:
Searched by wildlife under genre---EOLs: https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/p...orers-of-light
EU: http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/.../andy_rouse.do

Almost done with my rabbit hole. But, off to go kayaking as the thunderstorm threat has passed.