Hi UHH'ers, I am a newbie to this forum but have been following the forum for a few weeks. There are a lot of very good discussions and recommendations on the forum so I thought I would give it a try so here goes...

I have a Canon 5D Mark IV with a Canon 24-105 F4 and a Canon 100-400 II F4.5 - 5.6. I am seriously considering renting another camera body - a 7D mark II for more reach with my 100-400 II lens. I would keep the 24-105 on the 5D mark IV. I am choosing the 7D II for its 1.6 built in reach, high shutter speed and high ISO capability. Do you think this is the right approach? I am afraid of changing lenses in the field with all the dust. Any feedback on your experiences shooting in Africa or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. I am thinking of renting the Canon 7D Mark II from Borrowlenes.com for about $325.00 for 3 weeks. Anyone else rent from them? Hoping they provide well taken care of cameras.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Hi all I'm hoping for some help here. I recently had an Epic computer crash with all of my photos stuck inside. I had backed up some of the files but not all due to lack of sd card space ( needed to get another just slipped my mind I Know, I know bad photographer!) So I'm interested in buying a new computer and the reason I'm asking this question here is I know photographers like a certain amount of things running their photos. I'm looking at an Alien Ware Aurora with 460 watt multi GPU approved power supply with high performance liquid cooling, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 TI with 8Gb GDDR5, 32GB Dual channel DDR4 at 2666MHz; up to 64GB additional memory, 128GB M.2 SATA SSD (Boot) + 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage), Tray Load DVD-RW Drive (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD), Qualcomm DW1810 1x1 802.11ac Wi-Fi Wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.1, and Adobe Photoshop. Here's my problems, 1. Do I need anything else for me to have a almost top of the line computer to do my work? 2. Having issues on what Photoshop to purchase, ( not doing movies and want to avoid Adobe CC like the plague)? 3. Is there a Lightroom that is not hooked up to CC and if so is it a good editing software to use with Photoshop and does Photoshop support it? Any suggestions would be great and appreciated beyond belief.

Since the TSA doesn't allow Lithium batteries on airliners how can I have them when I get to where I'm going??? Two different times the TSA has taken 3 extra Nikon Batters as well as all my AA and AAA Lithium Batteries. Why is it they can let computers having Lithium Batteries go through yet the take any additional batters you may have?? I have contacted TSA several times and so far have never received a straight answer as to the reason they aren't allowed. Does anyone have an answer??
Thanks, David

As of lately, especially in public places, I find more and more people complaining that their picture is being made without consulting them. A few days ago I was shooting at a local park and all of a sudden a woman began to shout at me saying that I had photographed her child without her permission. My explanations about shooting in a public place plus my explanations that I was not shooting persons or children (shooting children without parent's consent is a felony in Dade County) did not convince her agitated attitude. She threatened me with a call to the police. I showed her the picture in question, taken with a wide angle and her child was not visible but I deleted the shot in front of her. That did not make her any happier but she did not call the police.

I like to go to local parks and photograph the scenery, not the persons there but this incident has been kind of traumatic to me since I treated the young lady with respect but she did not act the same way with me. Had she call the police it would have been hard for me to explain my rights and I know it is illegal to photograph children without parent's consent. I think I acted as a decent human being but I do not want this to happen to me again.

So, which are my rights?

Except that the Tokina 11-16mm is not a full frame lens, like the original poster is seeking. (Same with Tokina 11-20mm, 12-28mm & 12-24mm.... all are "DX/crop" lenses.)

There also is no such thing as a Canon 12-24mm f/2.8. There are Sigma 12-24mm f/4 and a Canon 11-24mm f/4L (see below).

Fisheye lenses (such as Canon's 8-15mm or their earlier 15mm prime) are NOT a good idea for the purposes stated. Fisheye are highly specialized due to their very strong distortion effects.

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Based on what's wanted (ultrawide for full frame for travel and especially city street shots), there are currently nine possible zooms:

Canon 11-24mm f/4L USM... the widest of all non-fisheye, but also the most expensive at $2700 and one of the heaviest at nearly 1200 grams. Also cannot be used with standard filters due to convex front element.

Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM... took three tries, but they finally got it right! Great image quality, but also fairly pricey, big and heavy. $1800, almost 800 grams, 82mm filters.

Canon 16-35mm f/4L IS USM.... Almost as great IQ as the f/2.8 III, far lower price, smaller size, lighter weight AND it's one of only two stabilized ultrawide zooms available for FF Canon. $1000, about 600 grams, 77mm filter.

Canon 17-40mm f/4L USM.... An older design now, pretty good but not as good IQ as the newer 16-35s, reasonable size/weight, lower price. $750, 500 grams, 77mm filter.

Sigma 12-24mm f/4 "Art"... Nearly the widest, also one of the higher price, large & heavy.... $1600, almost 1200 grams, convex front element/cannot use standard filters.

Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 "Art"... Faster f/2.8, but also rather large & heavy... $1300, nearly 1200 grams, convex front element/cannot use standard filters.

Tamron SP 15-30mm f/2.8 VC... Faster f/2.8 AND image stabilized, but rather large/heavy... $1100, 1100 grams, convex front element/cannot use standard filters.

Tokina AT-X 16-28mm f/2.8... One of the more affordable f/2.8 ultrawides... about $600, nearly 1000 grams, convex front element/cannot use standard filters.

Tokina AT-X 17-35mm f/4... Currently the most affordable ultrawide... Under $400, 600 grams, 82mm filters.

Many of the above zooms cannot use standard filters because they have strongly protruding, convex front elements. In many cases there are adapters for those lenses that allow using various oversize filters to be used, but there's extra cost involved, the type and qualities of filters may be limited, and those types of filters are rather bulky and difficult to shade well from oblique light.

IMO, f/2.8 isn't a major requirement for an ultrawide zoom.... more often than not, this type lens is being used stopped down for increased depth of field. The high ISO capabilities of recent DSLRs also may make f/2.8 less necessary. Of course there are some exceptions, such as an astrophotographer or others shooting a lot at night and wanting a larger aperture lens to brighten their viewfinder or a sports photographer needing particularly fast shutter speeds. But f/2.8 not only makes for a larger, heavier and more expensive lens, a faster lens also may not be as well corrected as a smaller aperture lens... less sharp in the corners, more prone to distortions and with more chromatic aberrations.

It's only available on two of the above zooms, but image stabilization may not be as important on ultrawides as it is on telephotos... shorter focal lengths being more easily hand held at slower shutter speeds. Plus many users put these types of lenses on tripods anyway, for the types of photography the lenses are commonly used. Even so, image stabilization is always a nice feature and two zooms on the above list offer it.

If you consider used, there are some older versions of some of the above. Just be careful of compromises in those lenses. There are reasons they've been replaced with new, revised versions. For example, there are at least two pre-Art Sigma 12-24mm.... But they are known to have fairly strong distortions that might be problematic for anyone wanting to shoot architecture.

Speaking of which, ANY of these ultrawides are going to tend to cause some exaggeration of perspective and heavy "keystoning" effect when photographing buildings. That's just the nature of very wide angle lenses. The best you can do to minimize these effects is use the least extreme focal length possible. There are also Tilt-Shift lenses available that can help counteract some of the effects. Those are only available as manual focus primes, though. And they're fairly pricey, large and heavy... ... such as the widest available Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L, $2150, 800+ grams, cannot use standard filters due to convex front element... or the the Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II, $1900, almost 800 grams, 82mm filters (which doesn't do you much good since you already have a 24mm wide lens).

There are also some 12mm, 14mm, 15mm, 17mm, 18mm, 20mm and 21mm non-fisheye primes you might want to consider as alternatives, instead of zooms. I'll leave it to you to research them, but they can be smaller, lighter and more affordable than the zooms listed above. Note that many ultrawide primes are manual focus only, some of the most affordable are also manual aperture only, and the widest among them use convex front elements that preclude using standard filters.

It's going to be tough to find folks on forums who have used them all and can give you truly comprehensive and unbiased recommendations (I know I can't!). But fortunately a lot of these lenses have been extensively reviewed at various online websites. Some of those review sites also include test shots with which you can compare for yourself the image qualities of some of your top contenders against each other... such as Bryan Carnathan's The-Digital-Picture.com. You might find useful that site's side-by-side comparison of image quality (sharpness, contrast, etc.), vignetting, distortions and more.

Hope this helps!