Which camera lens should I bring on a trip to New York?
I will be going on a school choir touring trip to New York City and would like to bring a Nikon D7000. Out of the three lenses I have (Nikon 135mm f/2 DC, Nikon 50mm f/1.4 G, Nikon 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED), I would like to only have to bring one. Which one should I bring?
I want the one that will allow me to take pictures of both the city buildings/sights, people, but also fun miscellaneous things like my food.
Why only take one lens?
The last time I was in Manhattan, I used my 12-24 mm the most and my 24-70 mm and 70-200 mm stayed in the bag for 90% of the time
Shooting the amazing street scenes requires something like your 10-24 mm lens. The 50 mm is fine for portraits. The 135 mm is just to long for the City unless you are planning at taking photographs of the island from a boat tour
Take the 10-24. If you can take a second, bring the 50. The 135 will have the least use.
Tough one to answer. It will depend on a few things.
If it were me, I would take the 135, because a) I tend to shoot with a telephoto point of view anyway, and b) the DC element will give you some incredible bokeh shots at night with all the lights. You have no way of being able to take food pictures with it though: it's too long (but I never take food photos, so…) I'd take the 50 as a second choice and the 10-24 would rarely see the light of day because, as I said, my general view is medium-to-telephoto. Other people are wide-angle shooters and they would suggest what Matt did.
The 50 is probably the "sensible" choice as a balance between the three, but if I were going to New York (or anywhere I hadn't been before) I would want to take only the stuff which I would really want to use, and in my case that would be the 135. Everything else is dead weight.
A lot of people will tell you that you can't shoot street scenes with a telephoto, but it's not true at all. Jay Maisel (who I mention a lot on here) does it, and his photos are sensational (although that's also partly down to his 60 years experience behind the lens). You just decide that you want to capture little scenes within bigger scenes, rather than the wide sweep of a wide-angle lens. If that's what interests you, then the 50 or 135 is your lens. If you want the bigger picture, then the 10-24. (The other benefit of a longer lens is that you can keep your distance when shooting people if you don't like to get up and in their space).
So your choice will depend largely on the kind of shots you want to take and your natural visual style.
The wide angle lens 10-24mm so you will be able to get everything you see and more as easily as possible.
In my opinion the 10-24mm will be the best option.
If you could take a second lens which i would highly recommend, like Matt said take the 50mm.