Travel Photography Tips | Choosing The Right Lens For Swayambhunath and Boudhanath Stupa | Kathmandu

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Swayambhunath Stupa | Kathmandu Valley | 24 mm Lems on 5D Mark II

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Boudhanath Stupa | Kathmandu | Nepal | 24 mm on 5D Mark II

Normally before I set my foot on new adventure, photographing places that I’ve never been before, I like to do some kind of a research especially the location of an interesting place I’m about to visit. The other thing is I like to know whether my current lenses especially really suit for the job or will cover the places that I want to Photograph.

Anyway, since this is about on how to choose the right lens, I will just get into that. Usually I will use photography sharing site like Flickr and 500 Px to get some camera EXIF information regarding the lenses that photographers use to photograph certain landmark or certain places, be it an architecture or landscape. But then, everyone is different, every photographers is different.

Some photographers like to photograph a landscape while others prefer to photograph  a landmark or building in each city they visited. Some other photographers does not really concern on getting it right, they just wanted to use the landmark as a background or foreground for their picture, they are like street photographer, they prefer to photograph the life or an activity around any particular landmark and not really concern to get every square inch of the building in the frame, just a glimpse of them will do justice.

Talking about the most popular landmark in Nepal which is Swayambhunath and Boudhanath Stupa in Nepal, you need to think on how you wanted to photograph them beforehand. As you can see from the picture above, Boudhanath Stupa is quite big compared to Swayambhunath. How you wanted to photograph them totally depend on your creativity.

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Bhaktapur Entry Ticket | Nepali Rupee Rs1100

What I’m trying to tell you here is that, if you wanted to get a solid full body shot of both stupa, then you better bring an UWA lens or Ultra Wide Angle lens, for the photographs above I just use 24 mm lens on my 5d full frame body and you can see that it is not wide enough to get the whole dome in the frame. So to those of you who wanted to get the best of them, better bring UWA lens like 10-20 mm for Non full frame camera or 14-24 mm for a Full Frame FX camera.

On the other hand, if really wanted to capture some details, especially close up of the eyes of both stupa, then 70-200mm will do the job for you, but on the other hand, if you just wanted to get some details all over the stupa, 50 mm will do justice.

There is a lot of activity going on here, there is also souvenir shop in case you wanted to buy something but you have a wide range of choice at Boudhanath Stupa compared to at Swayambhunath. I suggest you spend more than an hour or two on both places but personally for me, Boudhanath Stupa is less taxing to photograph by, there is a lot of cafe and rooftop restaurant at Boudhanath Stupa, where you can take your time, having a cup of coffee or tea and just watch the activity goes by.

If you wanted to get some high vantage point view of Kathmandu city, then Swayambhunath Stupa is the place because it is located at the top of the hill, you can get a beautiful view ofKathmandu valley there, while on the other hand, Boudhanath Stupa is situated in a flat land but using telephoto lens such as 70-200 mm will give you an advantage to get the stupa closer to the mountain behind. There is so much activity goings on at Boudhanath Stupa compared to at Swayambhunath.

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Distance Between Two Stupas | Swayambhunath and Boudhanath

Personally for me, I think the best time to visit both stupa is in the late afternoon, meaning that you can only visit one place at a time but if you running out of time, you can visit Swayambhunath Stupa in the morning and spend the afternoon at Boudhanath. Just to let you know, they are not situated close together, the distance between both stupa are about 13 KM that will take around twenty minutes to get into any of them from one another, meaning that you have to use either taxi or bus and not within a short walking distance.

Hopefully with this a little bit of information will help you decide on which lenses you need to bring, but for me to really enjoy traveling, travel light but if you wanted to take your travel like doing some kind of an assignment for National Geographic, then you know better then me.