trying to decide what to bring on two vacations, tips, comments?

[BigGreen73]

I picked up the Sony A55V end of last year and love it. Still learning all the little ins and outs. I have yet to take it on a true vacation. But, as it stands now, I have two vacations coming up. One to Virginia for my niece's graduation and visit family and the other to WDW in September.

I have had the worst time trying to figure out what lenses etc I may want to bring. Got a month to the VA. trip and a awhile to the WDW trip but I want to use the VA. trip as a test run of sorts to see how it is carrying stuff around and what I'll mostly use.

So I thought that I would throw it out there to get some imput from those w/ the experience going on vacation w/ their camera and lenses etc.

Here is what I have:

2 external flashes
Tri-pod
UV/Pol filters
50mm f1.8
35mm f1.8
30mm f2.8 Macro
16-50mm f2.8
70-300mm f4.5-f5.6
18-250mm f3.5-6.3
18-55mm "kit" lens

I have narrowed it down to:

35mm f1.8 (indoor rides)
70-300mm f4.5-f5.6 (thinking of the extra zoom for AK)
18-250mm f3.5-6.3 (walk around)
16-50mm f2.8 (charater pics, indoors, maybe FW's)
2 external flashes (one is very small, pocket size.)
Tri-pod (may not lug around the parks, but love taking night picks at the resort. I am an early riser and have been up and out at 3am taking pics at WDW before)

And I have no idea if I should bother with bringing filters on either trip.

 

[mom2rtk]

I think the 250 will be adequate for AK, so I'd leave the 300 home. Of course, taking it along on the trip doesn't obligate you to carrying it all day, so no biggie to throw it in either.

 

[photo_chick]

This is totally a personal call. I'd just make sure I had my focal lengths covered well. I'd leave the UV filters off but I might take a polarizer and ND if you have them.

 

[BigGreen73]

yeah, I have UV and polarizers to fit most of my lenses now. Haven't used UV much but do use the polarizers and didn't know how much I may or may not use them on my upcoming trips.

I also have a wired and wireless remote, but those take up up very little space.

Also, got a LowePro camera bag that I am using. Fits all my lenses, flashes, and camera quite nicely, but I am not sure if that the bage that I want to use/carry or if I want to get down to 2-3 lenses and go with my smaller over the shoulder camera bag that I have.

Decisions, decisions...