Primes or zooms?

What do you prefer, zooms or primes, and why?

In the analogue times, I only had a 135mm, 50mm, and 35mm lens (all Pentax Takumar). Like probably most people, I switched to zooms when I went digital. However, the past few years, I slowly gravitated to prime lenses again. Lately I have hardly taken a zoom lens out of my photo cabinet.

The optical quality of modern day zooms is excellent, but primes have some advantages for me. They are lighter and smaller than equivalent zooms, and usually let in more light (try to find a f/1.4 zoom). Besides, not having to zoom while composing my photos feels like a liberation.

My favourite focal lengths are 28mm and 50mm ... both give a natural view, and are ideal (for me) as city walk-arounds.

How about you?

I like primes, aka shoe leather zooms.

Depends on the application. For biding a zoom is invaluable for Astros a prime is better

I tend to use my zooms the most with my DSLR the majority of the time. I do use my macro 90mm prime quite a bit but my other modern primes don't get that much use. With the quality of modern high end zoom lenses and digital's great low-light performance I don't feel much of a need for more primes for my DSLR.

On the other hand I currently have 66 film cameras in my collection, and they all are using primes or fixed single length lenses. For the past few years I've been shooting about 50% film and 50% digital so I probably use prime lenses more often.

I can make just about any lens work for me in the end.

I tend to keep a 28-75mm zoom on my crop sensor DSLR. That's all I really use besides my 50mm, which is handy for lower light situations.

All of my film cameras are MF, so they are all primes.

Both... A zoom is quite useful when traveling and visiting places where you may not be able to "zoom with your feet", but primes..Ahh primes...

Primes 90% of the time. Sharper, faster, smaller. And usually I can walk back and forth.

Depends on what I'm doing. For a general walkabout or wildlife/sport - I have a trusty 17-55 f/2.8 or a 70-200 f/2.8.
If I'm doing something indoors or other relatively "contained" areas (yard parties, etc) - I will use a nifty fifty prime and frame it with the feet.

Prime whenever possible. If needs be, I can have one on the camera and one in a pocket or a bag. Whilst good quality zooms are technically excellent, they are also far too bulky and heavy.

Situation dictates. Can't always walk into the shot. I use my primes when I can, but zooms have their place.

One nice thing about a zoom over primes (unless you are carrying an array of primes with you) is you can take advantage of the compressed perspective when using a longer focal length. There is definitely a difference between filling the frame with an object from the distance of an 85 or 100mm than a 50 or a wide angle focal length.

Obviously not a big deal if you can carry at least 3 primes with you.

Often instead of carrying a lot of lenses or resorting to a zoom, I just bring along 1 single prime. Usually in the 80-90mm range for MF. It forces me to get creative in some situations.

In my experience, when I carry a zoom, I mostly use it at the extremes. I almost never zoom halfway, but do the smaller adjustments with my feet.

for the past year I've only had one lens on my camera the 50mm 1.8d. Its all i need!

So for me i say primes all the way!!

If you have any kind of Canon auto focus, regardless of what you usually have attached to the body, there's always room in your bag or pocket for their superb 40 mm./2.8 "pancake." It makes the nifty fifty look like a giant.

jazzman said:

If you have any kind of Canon auto focus, regardless of what you usually have attached to the body, there's always room in your bag or pocket for their superb 40 mm./2.8 "pancake." It makes the nifty fifty look like a giant.

Click to expand...

I don't have a Canon DSLR anymore, but I saw they introduced a new 50mm as well. Looks to be a great walkaround lens.

I love the 27mm on my Fuji X-E1, which happens to give the same FOV as a 50mm on a full frame DSLR.

Grew up with primes. Often shoot in low light; addicted to sharpest images possible. Ergo: the only time I use zooms is when I can't get away with primes.

I shoot mainly people, so I like primes. You can zoom with your feet. If I shot landscapes, though, it would be too much work to zoom with my feet, and I'd buy a zoom instead

I've been a photographer since I was 21....and I'm well into my 50s. I've used Nikons, Canons and Olympus SLR cameras. Back in the 80's, prime lenses were superior almost to every example over zooms. Both in sharpness and in speed. But things have changed rather drastically since then. Zooms have improved a great deal through the full range of their focal lengths and their speeds have too, but at a rather significant cost factor. The entire practice has become prohibitively expensive due to the cost of quality glass and bodies. Getting into the profession now is a huge investment. Back in the 80's, I had to put about $23,000 into my bodies and lenses for sports and news photography. If I had to start now...I believe that investment would top $50k for pro-level gear to cover sports, news and/or fashion. The tele lenses are priced at incredible prices...and all for auto-focus speeds and exposure. Lost is the art of focusing and using manual cameras. Most photogs today are clueless to the true art and science of photography. And that's sad.

I just got a used Fuji X100 so I guess prime all the way now!!

I still have my X-E1 with 3 lenses, but I was looking forward to the X100 for a long time. I shot with the Panasonic GF1 + 20mm for about a year before getting new lenses and had some of my best shots while stuck at one single focal length. However some other shots I now have from the X-E1 I couldn't have taken with only one lenses... There's a time for everything!

Zooms for convenience. Also, zooming with your feet isn't the same as using a zoom lens, because moving changes perspective.