which lens/ set-up for a big car show in europe ?

[nick francis]

As it says, what would you take? Geneva, Thursday

I plan to take my Canon 1DX, 24-105 mm F4 lens and 600 RT flash, as Im there as a guest with one the big manufacturers don't want to carry too much gear as I fear it may cramp my style!

I have 16_35mm, 24_70mm and 70- 200mm at my disposal but reckon the former will be more versatile.

Thoughts??

[revrange]

I would take the 24-70 instead of the other lense as it will stop down to 2.8 and I have always found light crap at motorshows. Maybe a nice fast prime as well? Won't take up much space in the bag and again work well in the low light

[K12beano]

If it's a show of Big Cars ...


You might want something wide.

My preference - but then I'm an N-man (full frame) - would be a 17-35 mm f/2.8

and either a 105mm Micro (to get into detail easily) plus a 50mm f/1.4 for lower light....

....or just an 85mm f/1.4 to double up for low light and isolating detail.

But that's just my take. I picture (p.i.) whole vehicles and scenes for half my time and isolating detail, people, faces with nice blur/bokeh for the other half.

And I'd ditch the gun and put up with the light available. And shoot RAW because the WB - especially from fluorescent lighting - will be a pain in the tripod bush.

[mrdemon]

Canon s120

Why lug a slr to a show ?
Most slr users will be taking pics of the girls not the cars any way !

Nothing worse than luging kit about, it's very rare I use my SLR kit over my compact these days.

[K12beano]

mrdemon said:

Canon s120

Why lug a slr to a show

....on that basis, just take an iPhone!

Low light, RAW, right lens for the job every time

[MogulBoy]

It should go without saying that its a very busy on the first public day - unless you plan on hanging around until towards closing time as it does thin out in the last hour or so toward the 8pm close.

If you want to actually sit in any of the cars you will be seriously hampered if you have a lot of kit with you...

My advice for Geneva is to use the cloakrooms for your coat as it gets hot and if you want to take your own photos (sometimes nice to to capture details that you won't find in any of the 000's of 'professional' (and other!) shots that you will find on the web! then a small camera with good low light capabilty is probably best.

Enjoy the show!

Edited by MogulBoy on Wednesday 5th March 12:07

[Craikeybaby]

The only lens I used when I was at the Tokyo show last year was my 17-40 (on FF), on the public days to need to get right to the front of the scrum to get a photo of the cars without anyone else in it. So I'd go as wide as possible, unless you're planning of taking pictures of the girls, rather than the cars...

Having said that, if I was going to a big motorshow again on a public day, I wouldn't bother lugging round my SLR kit. Because of the crowds, lighting and generally rubbish backgrounds the quality of the camera isn't going to make or break an image and it is easier to move around/get in and out of cars without a large bag or thousands of pounds of camera to worry about.