With a little over a week to go before my Yellowstone Winter photography trip, I’ve been piecing together my thoughts and my photography equipment.

I wrote earlier on this blog that I had decided to forgo using my Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 VR in lieu of taking 28mm and 50mm prime lenses. I even bought the 28mm for the trip. But, idle minds and test packing have led me to change my mind.

One thing I know about myself is that if I have enough time on my hands to contemplate a situation, I’ll over analyze it until the day it happens.

Technically speaking, the two primes are just fine. They actually have a little better optical performance than the zoom, which is fairly standard when comparing primes to zooms. But, I bought that 24-70 f/2.8 last year and for a reason. It’s a good lens. End result, I’ve changed my thinking to go for the added 4mm on the wide end, fill the focal length holes left by using two primes and knowing that the weather in Yellowstone in early February can be a challenge. The inclusion of VR on the zoom gives me a better run-and-gun approach (more flexibility) and low light capability for hand holding the camera. With the primes, I was pretty much going to be shooting from a tripod. The VR will cut down on me having to stomp around in knee deep snow at below freezing temperatures with a tripod.

The most important thing though was looking over the landscape shots I’ve made with the 24-70mm and to be honest with you, they are sharp as hell and look really good.

The over analyzing has concluded. I’ll hang on to the 28mm prime for a while, it has a really good image quality and the money I spent on it can be returned by reselling it when ever I get tired of looking at it.

So here is the kit.  Nikon D850 & D810, Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 VR, Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR II, Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 VR

Two bodies, three lenses, I’m covered head to toe from 24mm to 500mm with good quality glass and high resolution cameras.

If that can’t do the job, I suck as a photographer.