Stephen Mick
Totally Usable
Amazing report! I'm glad to get some input from someone else that films fishing, and it's awesome to see you packed your fly rod with you! Good to see you are "enlightened"Did you end up catching any peacocks of your own? That has been my dream trip since I started bass fishing.
I didn't end up getting anything on the fly rod. But I did land a couple of good sized pacas and one small freshwater barracuda. But out of seven days on the water, I only spent about two hours actually fishing.
As far as the filming goes, did you feel that you got adequate wide angle coverage with the 17-55 or was it a must to go to the Tokina 11-16? I previously have only had the 28-135 for my 7D (because it's so new, haven't had time to add lenses to the goodie bag yet), but have rented the 10-22 Canon lens and will take it out for the first time on Thursday on a shoot. I'm wondering if I could get away with 17 being my widest or if I truly need something wider. I shoot mainly handheld on foot, not out of boats.
From a lensing standpoint, I think it depends on what you can afford, and how much "coverage" you need. I could easily see a scenario where the 10-22 and the 24-105L lenses would give you all the coverage you would need. And if I could only take two lenses, it would be those two.
For this trip, I knew I'd be shooting (often) from boat to boat, so I needed more reach AND Image Stabilization. The 70-200 fit the bill here. Given that choice, the 24-105L would have been a bit redundant, so the 17-55mm was a natural fit in the normal/wide zoom range. But I'm also a big fan of the "superwide/near-fisheye" look, and chose the 11-16mm for this. Also, I liked the fact that all of my zoom lenses were a constant f2.8 across the range, giving me a bit more low-light flexibility.
Finally, I knew I'd be shooting at nights and in some even lower-light scenarios. A fast prime is perfect for this, and Luis was generous enough to lend me his Sigma 30mm, which at f1.4 is plenty fast.
So, to try to answer your question, yes, I think 17mm would be wide enough, especially if you're on foot. The 55mm end would also likely serve you well, if you can move in a bit tighter in some situations. But if you can swing it, the 10-22mm and the 24-105mm combination should be just about perfect.