HELP! Gear selection help for rain forest vacation

[rpassavant]

Good Evening All,

My wife has surprised me with a two week vacation to the Costa Rican rainforest that is going to include a number of varied scenarios that I will want to be shooting (canopy tour, zip line, waterfall rappelling, snorkeling, night tour). But I have a VERY limited weight restriction because of an in country flight half way through - 27lbs INCLUDING clothing.

So here is my problem - I only have a month until the trip and I need to figure out what of my gear to bring, what to borrow (rent) and what to buy to make the most of the trip.

So here is the gear I have already:

Canon T1i w/ 18-55 f3.5-5.6 IS kit lens and the 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS Telephoto
Canon 550D P&S (7MP 3x Optical)
Panasonic DMC-TS2 rugged / waterproof (14MP 4x Optical)

I am going to for sure take the Panasonic for use in the snorkeling, rappelling and probably the zip line tour since it's rugged and waterproof to 10M.

What has me stymied is what to do for the canopy, night and other forest time I am going to have. My original plan was to rent better/faster kit than I have - something like the 70-200 f/2.8 IS II and a normal zoom/wide angle like the 17-55 f/2.8 IS. But things are starting to add up (weight more than money!) 1.4lbs for the normal, 3.9lbs for the telephoto, 2.3lbs for the body, charger, bag, tri/monopod, backup hard drive, iPad, etc... - and I haven't even figured out how to ruggedize or waterproof the body if I wanted to take it snorkeling or on a whale watching tour yet!

I figure at max I can allocate about 10lbs for camera/technology gear but I want to take the best possible photos I can with that limited gear knowing I am going to encounter significant wildlife, insects, panoramic views and lots of water/dirt...

Your help is appreciated!

[kelvinc]

hi rpassavant, i'm not sure about your circumstances but in my case, the last few holidays i've had, i brought along a 18-200 and a 50mm. and most of the time, i ended up with the 18-200 because i didn't want the trouble of carrying/swapping lenses, especially if i was going to be doing a lot of walking.

no tripods, flashes, laptops... just 24gb worth of memory cards. i guess i enjoyed my holiday more because i wasn't too concerned whether i was using the optimal tools or not.

just my 2 cents.

[sk66]

Tough one....
I'd almost say just take the Panasonic and forget the rest (does it have manual settings?)

There will definitely be situations where it won't be enough...primarily low light and long reach.
Even a 200mm will probably be short for canopy wildlife, plus it will probably be difficult conditions (backlit low light). Under canopy will likely be rather low light...want a fast lens. Then there's the desire for possible macro type shots and wide angle shots...
What I'm saying is it's all going to add up to a bunch of gear and lens swapping and you may very well have trouble getting good shots anyways in such conditions.

If I had to decide for myself, I don't know...But if I were to take the DSLR I would definitely want a fairly fast wide zoom as my primary(if only) lens. Maybe something like the Sigma 17-50 f/2.8, not too expensive, versatile and lightweight.

[jdepould]

Skip the laptop/iPad stuff. Pare it down to the minimum and bring lots of cards.