photogdave
Shops local
I strive for the best image quality with the gear I have. If I can afford lenses that can give me higher image quality I will get them because it's important to ME and I take photos for MYSELF.
I'll never forget the day I decided to swear off zooms and switch to primes only. I had done the Everest Base Camp trek in Nepal and shooting on Nikons with the 20mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4 and 24-120mm 3.8-5.6. I shot everything on ISO 100 slide film.
I had the zoom along for convenience but it quickly proved to be less convenient because often there wasn't enough light to use the slower aperture range.
When I got he slides back the ones shot with the zoom were noticeable softer than the images shot with the primes - even in lots of light and fast shutter speeds.
I got rid of the Nikkor 24-120 right away. I held on to my Sigma 70-200 2.8 for a few more years as that was a very sharp lens but I still found it inconvenient to carry around.
Anyway, even to this day when I look at some of those slides I can't overcome my disappointment in the quality of the images shot with the zooms compared to the primes, and I regret ever using that zoom.
Does anyone else looking at the images notice the difference? Probably not but I do and that's what counts.
EDIT: Having said that, my post in this thread may seem to be in opposition to what i said here
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1153040#post1153040
But I wish I had made that image on a better lens too. I can't really print it bigger than 8x10 and I'd like to.
I'll never forget the day I decided to swear off zooms and switch to primes only. I had done the Everest Base Camp trek in Nepal and shooting on Nikons with the 20mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4 and 24-120mm 3.8-5.6. I shot everything on ISO 100 slide film.
I had the zoom along for convenience but it quickly proved to be less convenient because often there wasn't enough light to use the slower aperture range.
When I got he slides back the ones shot with the zoom were noticeable softer than the images shot with the primes - even in lots of light and fast shutter speeds.
I got rid of the Nikkor 24-120 right away. I held on to my Sigma 70-200 2.8 for a few more years as that was a very sharp lens but I still found it inconvenient to carry around.
Anyway, even to this day when I look at some of those slides I can't overcome my disappointment in the quality of the images shot with the zooms compared to the primes, and I regret ever using that zoom.
Does anyone else looking at the images notice the difference? Probably not but I do and that's what counts.
EDIT: Having said that, my post in this thread may seem to be in opposition to what i said here
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1153040#post1153040
But I wish I had made that image on a better lens too. I can't really print it bigger than 8x10 and I'd like to.
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