[nosliwmit]

I'll second the Natural Bridges recommendation. It's also a dark sky park and it would be a fabulous place to see the Perseids meteor showers (peaks 12/13 Aug this year). I was at Natural Bridges by coincidence one year during the Perseids. It was other-worldly.

Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada is stunning and under-utilized.

[UncleVanya]

You mentioned looking at weavers. Be advised that many Native Americans are extremely opposed to being photographed. Make sure to always ask everyone who may be in frame.

Thank you.

---------- Post added 06-11-21 at 10:27 PM ----------

It really depends on how far you want to drive, versus how much you want to explore locally. I'd recommend splitting any out of state trips over several days, since there is so much to see, and quite a bit of distance to cover.
FWIW, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is the best view of the canyon, and is often less crowded than the south and west options. If you do go to Durango, Colorado for the trains, you could continue west and take a detour to the Black canyon of the Gunnison, or to Monument Valley in Utah, or continue in Arizona and the North Rim. If you can stay at the North Rim cabins, you'd have some great opportunities for night time and astrophotgraphy with the Canyon, we stayed in Kanab, Utah, which had some good restaurants and quite a bit of history. Once you leave the North Rim you could drive up to Zion, which is worth some time, or proceed southeast over the river to Flagstaff and then east back to NM.
If you went to Durango, but headed Northeast, the Great Sand Dunes are something to see, and you could jump on I-25 to head south. I recommend the riverwalk in Pueblo, Colorado, for a brief walk around with some incredible statuary and architecture, and there are some good restaurants right there as well. Just outside of town near the airport, there is an aviation museum which has a great collection of rare aircraft. One of the docents is a retired Naval Aviator who has flown about a dozen of the aircraft types on display, and he's got some stories to tell.

Heading south on I-25, over Raton Pass into NM offers an incredible panorama, like looking back millions of years into the past. There's also a park with a dormant volcano along the way, but I forget the name.
In the opposite direction, Carlsbad Caverns is well worth visiting.


I always consult TripAdvisor when I travel, and I leave reviews as well. Every place is touristy in the summer, but TripAdvisor often helps me find alternatives and lesser known places worth seeing .

As for photo gear, over two weeks of multistate travel in that area, I used my K-1 and an FA 24-90 IF AL about 80% of my time. I also had a Tak 17mm FE that I put to good use, and I always have my DA 40 XS with me in case I need a wider aperture prime. I also recommend a CPL, and there are times when an ND filter was helpful to managed the brightest sun. Have a blower brush in your kit to clean areas before changing lenses.

While Hiking, I have a small beanbag or my Joby tripod in case I want to get creative and needed stability for long exposures.

Enjoy.

You are all fonts of knowledge. Thank you.

---------- Post added 06-11-21 at 10:28 PM ----------

I'll second the Natural Bridges recommendation. It's also a dark sky park and it would be a fabulous place to see the Perseids meteor showers (peaks 12/13 Aug this year). I was at Natural Bridges by coincidence one year during the Perseids. It was other-worldly.

Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada is stunning and under-utilized.

Thank you also.

[robgski]

Thank you.

You are welcome, I love to travel, and really enjoy helping plan trips.

[tonezime]

I have a Sony RX100 mk IV as well as the other gear. It is tiny and easy to carry. Interesting. I spent many many years mainly shooting with a 50mm on 35mm film so I know the joy of a single prime also.

I like having a compact like that with me to save some instances of fumbling around to switch lenses when I've been using a long lens on my main camera. Though to be honest the Panasonic 14-140 (II) and Sigma 18-300 (C) are good enough that for most vacations I'm not especially tempted by anything other than a prime.

[wm_brant]

Previous responses have provided a lot of good suggestions.

I'd like to add one thing: What are you planning to do with the images? If you have something specific in mind, that can help clarify equipment needs a lot.

Normally, when I travel, I take pictures for *me*, and since - like you - I like landscapes, I end up taking equipment for landscapes and taking a lot of landscape pictures. I don't 'do' social media, so I don't take a lot of that kind of snapshots.

However, this year, I got 'volunteered' to go on a Mississippi river cruise this fall with my oldest sister. Because of her age and health, this may be the last cruise she'll be on. My original thought was just to go with my usual photo plan - taking lots of scenic pictures of the river and fall color as it will be peak color on the upper Mississippi where we will be cruising.

However, I then thought I should do a photo book for her (I've never done one before). That changed things up a *lot*. I'll still be doing pictures of the fall color, but I also need lots of pictures around the boat, people we meet, and the places we will be visiting. That's... a lot different than what I normally shoot. More snaps, more pictures 'on the go'. I've never felt the need to take a picture of my dinner, but I'll probably be taking pictures of our meals on the boat. Yes, I'll still get lots of good pictures of the fall color, but instead of my landscape shots being 95% of the pictures I take, it may be less than 10%.

That kind of change is not a bad thing, and it does help clarify my equipment selection. A good standard zoom is going to be my main lens. I will also need to shoot lots of indoor shots many in the evening and under artificial light, so a normal to short tele lens with a wide aperature will also be helpful. Since I'll be taking significantly more pictures than I normally do, I need to make sure I will have enough SD cards and batteries to get through the day. And I can probably plan on at least one day with rain, so I need to have equipment that can handle that.

I'm not saying you need to make a photo book, but having some idea of what you hope to do with the pictures you will be taking will help you select your equipment.

Another thing I found helpful was to choose the (smallish) camera bag I would be carrying *first*. I told myself that I can fill the bag I chose with whatever gear I want, but that's all I'm carrying. Before I did that, I found myself constantly dealing with 'equipment creep', every day adding just one more lens and one more accessory until I found myself essentially planning to take everything...

[UncleVanya]

I'd like to add one thing: What are you planning to do with the images? If you have something specific in mind, that can help clarify equipment needs a lot.

Normally, when I travel, I take pictures for *me*, and since - like you - I like landscapes, I end up taking equipment for landscapes and taking a lot of landscape pictures. I don't 'do' social media, so I don't take a lot of that kind of snapshots.

…I'm not saying you need to make a photo book, but having some idea of what you hope to do with the pictures you will be taking will help you select your equipment.

Another thing I found helpful was to choose the (smallish) camera bag I would be carrying *first*. I told myself that I can fill the bag I chose with whatever gear I want, but that's all I'm carrying. Before I did that, I found myself constantly dealing with 'equipment creep', every day adding just one more lens and one more accessory until I found myself essentially planning to take everything...

Great question. I will probably combine a few different goals. Landscapes and people will feature in this and a documentation aspect to the trip definitely plays a role.

[robgski]

However, I then thought I should do a photo book for her (I've never done one before). That changed things up a *lot*.

I have done a few books for friends and family over the years, since the children in those books have become adults, and a few of the people in those books have passed, the books have become more cherished, even if some of the pictures have not been technically perfect.

I told myself that I can fill the bag I chose with whatever gear I want, but that's all I'm carrying.

Great idea, I have been doing that subconsciously for trip when I have to fly to a destination, but seeing the practice written out makes sense.

Landscapes and people will feature in this and a documentation aspect to the trip definitely plays a role.

on YouTube, both Sean Tucker and Daniel Milnor have made some very informative videos on creating cohesive end products, whether books or webpages. In any case, the idea they present are very helpful and have encourage me to try and organize my keeper images around a theme, event, or trip, as well as trying to view locations with the idea of a common theme.
Slightly related, we once participated in a project where a stuffed animal, a bear in this case, was mailed to people involved, and each would take a picture of a local landmark of some sort with the bear in the frame. It seems silly at first, but once all the photos were assembled, it was a coherent end result.

[UncleVanya]

Thank you all for the great input.

[UncleVanya]

Trip canceled. My aunt in Santa Fe is worried about the water/heat/fire situation. So… new plans in the making.

[gump]

Trip canceled. My aunt in Santa Fe is worried about the water/heat/fire situation. So… new plans in the making.

Bummer

[UncleVanya]

Bummer

Agreed, but the pivot seems possible and I’ve got a friend in Butte Montana who is offering to allow us to stay with him and stage from there. We are looking at rv rentals also.

---------- Post added 06-22-21 at 03:29 PM ----------

Trip in august

[gump]

Agreed, but the pivot seems possible and I’ve got a friend in Butte Montana who is offering to allow us to stay with him and stage from there. We are looking at rv rentals also.

---------- Post added 06-22-21 at 03:29 PM ----------

Trip in august

I may be wrong but there seems to be the glimmer of a plan developing.

[cometguy]

I'm planning a similar 3.5-week western-US driving trip, and I've been thinking for weeks about what to bring to keep my photography equipment to a minimum, with lots of other stuff (and people) that have to go in the car. My main subjects will be landscapes, clouds, sunsets/astrophotography, family, and wild animals. I've come down to two small-ish camera bags, two DSLRs, several lenses, and a tripod. I'm bringing a K-3 II with these lenses (chosen out of a couple dozen K-mount lenses that I have): DA 20-40mm Ltd.; F 28-mm f/2.8 with Hoya R72 (near-infrared) filter on it; 105-mm f/2.8 Sigma EX Macro; A* 300-mm f/4; and (just in case I need a little extra reach) Pentax Rear Converter-A 2X-S. For wide landscapes (and astro), I'm bringing my full-frame D800 camera + Tokina AT-X Pro 20-35mm f/2.8 lens (no extra F-mount lenses). It's indeed an interesting process choosing what camera(s) and lenses to bring on a trip, whether driving or flying, and my choices have certainly evolved over the years.

[UncleVanya]

My new plan is to travel to MT and WY and the basics are as follows:

Fly into Bozeman, get to Butte. Stay the night. Take a friends pickup truck (what a pal!) rather than rent a car. Drive to Glacier National Park area. Stay a few days.

Drive back to Butte, stay the night.

Drive to Yellowstone area (north entrance) stay 3 days, drive to dubois mt, stay a few days, hit Grand Tetons
back to Yellowstone, back to Bozeman, back to home.

Gear - as before I'm torn:

GX8 kit possible: Panasonic GX8, Panasonic 12-35 f2.8, Panasonic 50-200 f2.8-4 (rental), Panasonic 2x extender (rental), Olympus 60mm Macro, Panasonic 42.5 f1.7 (possible), Olympus 9mm body cap fisheye (for fun), 7.5mm Laowa f2 (possible rental) (( Also have the Olympus OMD-EM1 mk1 as an alternative) FF angle of View Coverage of 24-800mm + 18mm fisheye or 15mm SuperWide / 20mp

KP Kit possible: Pentax KP, Pentax HD DA 20-40 f2.8-4, Pentax DA* 60-250 f4, Pentax HD DA 1.4x, Pentax AFA 1.7x (maybe), Pentax DA 12-24 f4, Pentax SMC DA 15 (Possible), Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 fisheye (possible) Raynox to go on DA 60-250 for close up work or DFA 100 (possible). Likely no DFA 100. FF Angle of View Coverage of 18-525mm (637 with 1.7x, 892 w/both TC's stacked) + 12mm fisheye (possible) / 24mp

Sony A7rIII Kit possible: Sony A7rIII, Sony 24-105 f4 (or Sony ZA 24-70 or Sony FE 28-70), Sony 28mm FE f2, Sony Wideangle Conversion Lens for 28mm - 21mm f2.8 effective, Sony 100-400 f4-5.6 (rental) FF Angle of View Coverage of 21mm - 400mm (unless I rent the 1.4x or 2x teleconverters for the 100-400) / 42mp

Desired goals: A few wildlife shots, a few landscapes, a nice astrolandscape shot with the milkyway, general fun shots...

It is likely the kit will be pared to the essentials.


Kit weights in the minimal configuration are not that horribly and while the m43 is lighter the Sony and KP kits are not that far apart.

---------- Post added 07-15-21 at 10:44 PM ----------

M43 kit is the lightest.
Normal lens (12-35) has a moderate zoom range and f2.8 constant aperture.
Telephoto lens is the lightest and with the 2x the longest. (50-200, plus 2x extender both rented)
Might include a very nice macro lens (60mm Olympus)
Worst sensor for Astro/landscape/low light.

Sony kit is the heaviest. Normal lens has the broadest zoom range 24-105 (unless I switch to another lens).
Wide angle is a compromise - the 21mm conversion lens is pretty good by all accounts but not as good as a dedicated lens.
Telephoto is great but the images I have seen with the 2x are softer than I would like but not “bad”.
Great low light and landscape capability. Loads of megapixels to crop from.

KP kit may be the Goldilocks kit. It’s not as heavy as the Sony kit (depending on the normal lens selected). It offers excellent low light and good landscape capability.
Wide angle is complicated the da 12-24 is a good lens but not the best Astro option due to aperture.
The normal is the smallest zoom range. I have other options but they are heavier or has less aperture options (Da 16-50, da 18-135).
My primes are great but I lack anything wide and fast.

[aslyfox]

My new plan is to travel to MT and WY and the basics are as follows:

Fly into Bozeman, get to Butte. Stay the night. Take a friends pickup truck (what a pal!) rather than rent a car. Drive to Glacier National Park area. Stay a few days.

Drive back to Butte, stay the night.

Drive to Yellowstone area (north entrance) stay 3 days, drive to dubois mt, stay a few days, hit Grand Tetons
back to Yellowstone, back to Bozeman, back to home. . . .

probably not doable but if at all possible rent the D FA 150-450 to reach out and touch wildlife

grizzly and mountain goats and flying birds of prey