Zoom vs Prime

Manual focus primes, for all the reasons already raised. As Bill does, I preset exposure and focus - even though, unlike him, I rarely require to capture a precise moment, preferring to photograph still lifes and urban landscapes devoid of people.
 
Didn't Don McCullin shoot most of his classic stuff with a Nikon F plus a 28mm and a 135mm?
Nowadays, that basic photojournalist kit would be a 5D3, a 16-35 and a 70-200.
It makes more sense for the zoom to be a tele lens, since zooming with your feet gets progressively more difficult when the necessary image size adjustments/changes are measured in tens of meters.
 
I've recently cut down on my lenses back to just the 18 & 35 for the Xpro, losing the ultra wide. That said, about a month ago I bought the Fuji 18-55, used it three times and don't like it. Yes the quality is superb but I just don't enjoy using it. Expect to see it in the classifieds very soon.
For my pocket cams it's the Ricoh GR. I like the 28mm fov. The Sony RX 100 gets used very rarely now although the zoom lens on this compact can be handy for family shots. Don't like using that either.

Paul
 
Bill Pierce said:
When zoom lenses began to first appear for still cameras, they weren’t as good as they are today. It was just something you accepted if you needed a zoom lens. Now that they’ve been around awhile, they’ve gotten better, better optically and better because of in-camera corrections possible in digital cameras. Still, prime lenses often have a faster maximum aperture, smaller size, lower cost and, even today, with their fewer elements and simpler formulas optimized for a single focal length, better image quality. Still, my guess is, the majority of folks favor a a zoom over multiple fixed focal length lenses.

So which do you favor, zoom or prime? I lean in the direction of prime lenses not only because I often shoot in dim light, but, more important, because I don’t want to be deciding what focal length to use while I’m taking a picture. By the way, I also preset focus and exposure. Most of the photography I do sinks or swims on when you press the button, and I don’t want any distractions. That would be a pretty foolish attitude for a landscape photographer where just the right frame can be more important than just the exact moment.

So where do you fall in this pantheon of lens users, and, of course, WHY?
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Dear Bill,

The highlight is the most important reason why I mostly use primes. That second or two of fiddling about to get the "right" focal length is almost never a substitute for being in the right place at the right time with the right focal length.

Zooms are OK, though, if I'm not in a hurry. Right now I'm using my old 90-180/4.5 Vivitar Series 1 Flat Field quite a lot in the studio for small product shots for use in a book where they'll rarely even run quarter-page. It's just easier to zoom to fill the image area with different sized products than to keep moving a 200-lb camera stand.

Cheers,

R.
 
Commercial work, landscapes etc: Zooms are quick and flexible to use under a myriad of circumstances. Optically they are great nowadays.
Street/Documentary etc: A couple of primes. Light and simple and no time wasted making lens choices/changes.
Holidays/fun: One zoom and perhaps a prime for portraits.
 
I trend towards a compact camera and love a lens that manually retracts in the camera body.

Most of my personal shooting is with film. My grab and go film cameras are either a compact 35mm or a medium format folders - which have a fixed, non-removeable, single focal length lens.

If using a Leica, I prefer either a compact Summaron or a collapsible 50mm.

It would be nice to have an "optically great" 18-35mm zoom for my work related digital SLR. Consumer zooms tend to suck, unless you close down the aperture to near f8 - which for indoor work would be tripod territory.

Best Regards,
 
I prefer prime lenses. It allows me to know what will roughly be in the photo (due to constant use of a single focal length) before I raise the camera to my eye. I like to work that way.
 
I prefer zooms, autofocusing zooms at that, when I shoot video, which has become more and more important to me in the past couple of years. I do video of live music shows and so I very much appreciate such high-tech features as touch-screen focusing, focus tracking, etc. For still photography, I tend to use manual-focus, fixed-focal-length lenses because of their speed and small size.
 
I think it depends on which zoom, vs. which prime. Zooms have recently gotten much better than they used to be. Erwin Puts wrote that now that optical engineers have the means to optimize the combined performance of a lens having 12, 14, or more elements, they are able to achieve a higher performance level than they can with a prime, because the greater number of surfaces can be used to achieve a higher order of correction compared to a prime.

I don't own any fancy expensive zooms, but I find that my 28-105mm Nikkor gives me excellent color saturation along with high image quality. At times I'll use it in preference to my Zeiss 25 and 35mm, because the IQ is usually good enough, and the zoom lets me work faster and lighter, and frame more precisely. For low distortion and higher speed, the Nikkors and Zeiss come out of the bag.
 
Zooms on the DSLR, it's a tank anyway so what the heck. Primes on my RFs and Fuji. The point of them is to travel light.
 
Generally, I use zooms a 24-85 and an 80-200 on my D700. I'd use primes, but the two zooms and a body have been the most versatile setup for me. Were I to use primes I'd likely go for a 24-50-85, I think I'd still use an 80-200 2.8.
 
For work, if sports are involved, Canon DSLRs with 11-40, 70-200, and 100-400 zooms. For work if no sports or long lenses needed, M8 and primes or, if I can get away with it, film Leicas and primes. I have one varifocal 28-35-50 for the Leicas and it stays home.
 
Used to use a Leica M with 35mm, and a 90mm in my pocket. Now using digital... Canon EOS M with 22mm with 35mm brightline finder, and Fuji X10 in pocket to replace the 90, and as backup.
 
For family/friends shooting, apart from the usual film cameras with prime lenses, sometimes I decide to use a digital body, and for those images I carry two zooms covering everything.
They work very well for that, and I allow others to use my camera... For film, in my case street shooting and portraits mostly, I feel more comfortable with prime lenses always...
Cheers,
Juan
 
For anything other than family snapshots, kids' parties and similar I almost invariably use prime lenses. The one exception is my 80-200 2.8, if I need to get some reach.

Over the 35 years that I've been reasonably serious about taking good pictures, I've noticed that to be successful I need to be deliberate. Zoom lenses make me less thoughtful about what I do and noticeably reduce my 'hit-rate' of good, usable pictures. It's the same with automatic exposure. This is one of the main reasons I bought into the Leica M series and still use Olympus OM SLRs (as well as Nikon), and also why I favour film over digital: it forces me to stop and think about what I'm trying to achieve.
 
Both - choice depending on subject, light, and shooting environment.

Corollary to the "don't want to think about FL changes when I'm about to shoot" principle: "don't want to think about shooting position changes when I'm about to shoot."
 
michaelwj said:
I think this is true but swinging. Most photos are taken with phones, which are prime lenses. Most young folk only know that, and if they migrate to a dedicated camera, the prime may seem like the obvious choice. Of course, I could be (and usually am) wrong.

Michael
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Seen plenty of folks pretend their phones have zoom lenses, using the digital zoom feature.

Anyway, I've used only primes for years, but have recently been using a fixed 2.8 zoom on m4/3, and I've actually been quite happy with it. I use it kind of like three primes, though: wide open (24-e), mid-range (35/40-e) and fully extended (80-e), and just switch quickly based on what I need at that moment. I don't know if it'll last, but it's been an interesting change...
 
As I've aged I don't seem to like nature and aircraft shooting anymore. Hence, no need for telephotos. I was just thinking of selling the zooms I have for my D610. I have an 18/2.8 Nikkor D and a 35/1.4 Sigma Art (which has made me a true believer) and I think I will get an 85mm and call it good.
 
I "favor" primes in the 28mm-50mm EFOV.
But I've had it with having the wrong focal length with me (never carry 2 lenses), and I recently bought a Fuji X-E1 with the 18-55 zoom, and I am very happy working with it. When I am out for the one purpose of making pictures, it's the X-E1 + zoom at the moment.
 
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