Hi Anselm, I went to the South-West of the USA about three years ago with the following equipment: Soligor 20mm (borrowed for the occasion), Nikon 35-70 f3.3-4.5 and Sigma APO 70-210 f4-5.6. I used mainly the 35-70 zoom and occasionally the 20mm. Rarely the telezoom. The ultra-wide proved to be useful but not very good unfortunately. Should I return, I would use an ultra-wide more often. There were times a wider lens (17 or even 14mm) would have been more useful too. I do not recommend a fisheye. Have a look at the new Sigma 14mm EX rectilinear. It is relatively affordable and seems to perform really very well, following magazine tests I recently read. In fact, it seems to be virtually on par with the Nikkor 15mm MF, optically speaking. The latter is way out of most budgets... I now have a totally different set of lenses: 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 180mm, all AF Nikkor primes. If I had to go back, I would take them all and possibly add a wider one (Tokina 17mm, Sigma 14mm ?). In your case, I would consider either an ultra-wide and a wide (28 or 35), either an ultra-wide and zoom (28-something, the new 28-105?). You may also consider that 20mm is wide enough and only fill the gap between 20 and 50. BTW, the places I liked the best were: Canyonlands, Zion and the Lake Powell. Try to arrange a visit to one of the slot canyons near the lake. When we were there, we realised one day was needed for such a visit (you have often several hours of drive from one place to another, roads are rarely direct) and we had not arranged our travel in consequence, too bad :-( For what the shops concerns, I bought a lens from Capital Sound & Vision one month ago (my 85mm). I was in England so I went directly to the shop in Crawley. Prices are very interesting indeed. Just be aware that they sell grey import stuff that will not be covered by Nikon's worldwide warranty. You will have to rely on their own warranty. Hope this helps, Nicolas
