(Photo by Tatyana Volk)
Since the weight and the bulk of the camera and lenses were a problem during my trip to the Eastern Europe the previous year, I tried to pack light for the Swiss trip. In the end, I took just one camera body, Canon 5Dmk2 without the battery grip. That saved both weight and bulk. I brought the 24-70/2.8 which proved adequate for most tasks, even though it wasn’t as fast as the primes I used to take along. More than 80% of the images were taken with the second lens, 70-200/2.8 IS II. I paid for the newest version of this lens and was glad that I did. The image quality is exceptional and the stabilization definitely helped. My only complaint was that the IS switch is too easy to bump into “off” position by accident.
Having the ability to zoom proved invaluable, as often I had neither the ability to move further or closer, nor the time to switch lenses. I’ve never been a fan of zooms due to the optical compromises involved, but apparently high-end zooms work well enough. Losing the macro capability turned out to be a non-issue for the subject matter involved. I did bring a portable flash and it came in handy a few times. I did not bring a folding reflector — forgot it at home — and felt the lack of it badly.
We had two Panasonic G2 bodies with 20, 30, 45 and 60 lenses as well, so I had a backup option in case of 5D2 failure.