Maldives Advice

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Hi guys,

I am off to the Maldives soon for a well deserved break and would appreciate some advice.

I am new to the DSLR world and have a Canon 550d with 50mm 1.8 prime and Tamron 17-50mm Non VC lenses.

I walked into Jessops a couple of days ago and the guy there suggested to me that I should buy a Hoya Circular Polariser and something like an Cokin ND8.

I have hoods for both the above lenses but nothing else.

Should I be taking both lenses or should I stick to just the one?

I appreciate that the Canon has a 52mm filter size and the Tamron a 67mm filter size.

I have come across step down and step up filters...any comments?

I assume that I wouldn't be able to use these with the hoods.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am a bit confused at the moment! :help:
 
I don't know much about polarisers or ND filters but I'd definitely recommend you take the Tamron. You're going to want something wider than 50mm to shoot the sunsets and beaches.

A polariser might help you get some shots of fish through the water as they come close enough to the beach for you to wade in. We saw baby blacktip sharks and rays from the sun lounger.

Also think about minimum focal distance for pseudo macro (might be shorter with the 50mm 1.8) - there are lots of nice flowers as well as tiny hermit crabs and lizards to shoot.

So jealous, I think the Maldives is the best holiday I've ever been on. Try not to spend all your time fiddling with the camera and if you can, get up early (I know, it's a holiday) not only will it be the golden hour but you'll see more fish.
 
I'm also going to the maldives soon! I'm just looking into getting a fisheye to take with me for some wide sun set shots! (not that you need a fish eye)

I also have a 16-85 that i'm taking and a 35mm.

Then i'm also looking into waterproof compacts just to mess in the water with!
 
I went to the Maldives last March and I'm going again later this year. (Yes, I loved the place.)

I didn't see any need for ND filters, either solid or grad. There's no real landscape in the conventional sense, and the skies are usually deep blue, so an ND grad isn't useful in the same way as in (say) the Lake District. I took *lots* of sunset shots and didn't see any need for a grad there either. There's no real foreground interest so no need to worry about balancing foreground exposure against sky exposure.

I did use a polariser when taking some general shots of the island. It darkens the blue sky a bit and reduces reflections off the water. But it wasn't a big deal, and I'm not sure whether I'd bother next time.
 
Brilliant...thanks for that Stewart
Less than a month to go and I can't wait! :)
 
jordanogrady said:
I'm also going to the maldives soon! I'm just looking into getting a fisheye to take with me for some wide sun set shots! (not that you need a fish eye)
Click to expand...
If you like the fisheye effect, then fine, but no you certainly don't need it.

Here are a few sunsets from my last trip.

f=17mm
27255_112739188751335_100000457633989_179180_8273466_n.jpg


f=61mm
27255_112739195418001_100000457633989_179181_3076327_n.jpg


f=17mm
28321_120750254616895_100000457633989_210789_1677955_n.jpg


f=28mm
28321_120750527950201_100000457633989_210797_5455882_n.jpg


f=47mm
28321_120750737950180_100000457633989_210802_6461495_n.jpg
 
Wow, there are some good sun set shots there. Yeah I know you don't need a fisheye at all, but I want one :-)
 
Take lots of memory. That was my biggest regret, plus the fact I wasn't into photography back then. But the lack of memory was a real shame as I really had to watch how many shots I took...
 
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