Appalachian Trail northbound- With a Nikon D800

WestEndFoto

@Pickerel, how did taking the 16-35mm f4 and 85mm f2.8 work out for you? I do some casual backpacking in SC. I have a bum back, so I can't do more than a few miles in up and down terrain with a pack and have to watch weight carefully. I would bring my 17-55 with me when I was using DX. I just sold and re-bought a bunch of my gear and moved from DX to FX and have the 16-35 f4 and 28-70 2.8mm, but the 28-70 f2.8 is just plain heavy. Bringing both is out of the question, so last trip I brought just my 28-70 and sometimes it just wasn't wide enough. Any thoughts from your experiences? Thanks for your input. Great job getting published. I just checked out some of your pics and looks like you've had a lot of cool adventures. Appalachian trail would be fantastic. I have a sister of a friend that just did it this last year and had a blast.

Why don't you buy a short tele prime and zoom with your feet instead of the 24-70. That will save a tonne ot two.

Msmoto

@Pickerel

Nice to hear from you again....enjoy life as you do for as long as you can.... A lot of folks would love to be out in the wild as well..... or simply be able to do what you have done....

HipShot

@Pickerel

Nice to hear from you again....enjoy life as you do for as long as you can.... A lot of folks would love to be out in the wild as well..... or simply be able to do what you have done....

YES!

Pickerel

@Pickerel, how did taking the 16-35mm f4 and 85mm f2.8 work out for you? I do some casual backpacking in SC. I have a bum back, so I can't do more than a few miles in up and down terrain with a pack and have to watch weight carefully. I would bring my 17-55 with me when I was using DX. I just sold and re-bought a bunch of my gear and moved from DX to FX and have the 16-35 f4 and 28-70 2.8mm, but the 28-70 f2.8 is just plain heavy. Bringing both is out of the question, so last trip I brought just my 28-70 and sometimes it just wasn't wide enough. Any thoughts from your experiences? Thanks for your input. Great job getting published. I just checked out some of your pics and looks like you've had a lot of cool adventures. Appalachian trail would be fantastic. I have a sister of a friend that just did it this last year and had a blast.

Who was your friend's sister? Can you provide her trail name or real name, or the days she started / finished the hike? Given how much time I spent on the Appalachian Trail this year, there stands a good chance I was hiking around her!

More thought went into what camera gear was going into my backpack than all the actual backpacking things that were going into my backpack! I considered everything, from the Nikon zoom trifecta to a wide-range zoom with perhaps also an ultrawide lens to everything in between. I eventually settled on those two, and I was happy with that combination. Indeed, being out in the woods with just what is in your backpack, you must accept that what you have is what you have, and use it to its best ability.

16-35 f/4G VR - I liked the ultrawide to wide range, knowing I wanted some sort of ultrawide lens. If most people long-distance hiking or even backpacking are using point-and-shoot cameras or GoPros or cell phones, the 109-degree field of view gives me a perspective that was simply unavailable to most others. Unfortunately this lens did not handle over a thousand miles in my backpack too well. While it still works, at least one element is decentered badly enough that you can see the resolution difference on one side of the frame or the other just looking through the optical viewfinder. Maybe that was just bad luck, and if I carried a new 16-35 for another long-distance hike all the improvements in my packing style would carry it more gently.

85mm f/1.8G - I wanted some amount of telephoto, but was loath to carry my nice but heavy 70-200mm f/2.8G VR (old version). I wanted something with an aperture of f/2.8 or faster so I had some capability to freeze motion and/or to blur away the background. Between my Tokina 100mm f/2.8D macro and the 85mm, I chose the 85mm for the wider aperture. The macro capability was tempting, though.

Over the course of the hike my pack became lighter, as I optimized things and carried less of what I didn't need. This also enabled me to carry more camera equipment. I also used my truck as a support vehicle from Luray, VA all the way to Katahdin so I could change out my lenses sometimes. For sections I knew were less scenic, I'd carry less glass. Either the Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 VC to give me midrange flexibility, or just the super-lightweight 50mm f/1.8D, or sometimes the PC-E 45mm f/2.8D to give me some macro capability as well as the perspective control.

However, my favourite combination to carry was the AF-S 24mm f/1.4G, PC-E 45mm f/2.8D, and AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G VR. Sometimes I would bring a smaller telephoto lens, bringing out the AF-S 85mm f/1.8G, and sometimes I would bring no telephoto at all. Sometimes I would also swap the wide angle lens for my AF 20mm f/2.8D if I had a lot of climbing and wanted to save some weight. Same idea with swapping the 45mm for the AF 50mm f/1.8D. The latter lens really is a beauty for hiking - razor sharp at f/8, the flexibility of shooting at a wide aperture for low light / background blur, and the thing only weighs a few ounces.