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Traveling to Italy with Canon’s new EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM Lens

Introduction

I recently spent a week traveling in Italy with my family. We spent a few days exploring and photographing the ruins of the Forum & Coliseum and skimmed the surface of the Vatican treasures in Rome. Then we made our way to the Amalfi Coast, with Positano as our home base, and journeyed out to discover and shoot the ancient cities of Pompeii and Hernacleum, and even climbed to the top of Mount Vesuvius to peer into the vast crater.

My goal, besides enjoying a lot of the great culinary arts of Italy, was to capture a lot of great images of the art and architecture that I have studied and love. I knew we would be seeing magnificent monuments and historic ruins that would require a good wide-angle lens to capture their enormity. There would also be great architectural details at the tops of high columns and paintings in soaring ceilings that would require a longer lens. And I love to shoot macro and close-ups for details.

In other words, if I weren’t careful, I’d carry my whole studio with me.

Equipment Considerations

At the same time I was planning my equipment selection for the trip, Canon announced a new lens and the opportunity to take the EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens presented itself. Having worked extensively with the EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, I wanted to see if this new “L” lens would enhance my photographic experience. After evaluating my camera gear with this lens in mind, I packed two camera bodies, a full-frame EOS 5D Mark II and an EOS 7D. One great consideration was the 1.6x crop factor of the 7D, which would make this lens equivalent to 112mm-480mm, a significant boost in range when exploring ancient ruins that you could not get close enough to see the details.

I would normally take an assortment of lenses to span from wide angle to normal to longer telephoto, resulting in at least 7 lenses and exceeding 12-1/2 pounds!

Usual Gear	Weight	Scaled Down Gear	Weight
10-22mm (for 7D)	13.6 oz / 385g	10-22mm (for 7D)	13.6 oz / 385g
16-35mm L	1.4 lb / 640g	16-35mm L	1.4 lb / 640g
24-105mm L	1.5 lb / 670g	24-105mm L	1.5 lb / 670g
100mm Macro	1.3 lb / 600g
70-200mm L	3.3 lb / 1490g	70-300mm f/4-5.6 L IS USM	2.3 lb / 1050g
75-300mm IS	1.1 lb / 480g
100-400mm L	3.0 lb / 1380g
Total Weight:	12.5 lbs / 5645g	Total Weight:	6.1 lb / 2745g

I reluctantly eliminated some of my favorite lenses: the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II, the 100 Macro and the 100-400mm. Together they added up to 6 pounds. That may not sound like much, but when you carry a camera bag and a couple of cameras around your neck for several hours traversing very uneven, slippery ancient Roman streets, 6 pounds is a lot of weight, and very noticeable by the end of the day!

Packing Light

Each day we would be traveling to different destinations and I wanted to be able to take just a small camera backpack on our full-day outings and not be weighed down with a lot of equipment.

Travel (especially International) is complicated and more expensive now with airlines charging for overweight baggage and imposing greater restrictions for carry on items. Where in the past I would have taken several heavier lenses and accessories “just in case”, I am now much more judicious about the equipment I pack. That is one of the many reasons it was exciting to try the new EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens on this trip. The lens weighs in at only 2.3 lbs. (1050g), about a full pound lighter than the 70-200mm f/2.8, which is a lens I would usually never leave home without.