Prime or Zoom Lens

[AndrewEllinas]

I've had my 10D nearly a month now with a 50mm F1.8 and a 28-90mm F4/5.6 that I've borrowed from my daughter.

I want to buy some lenses, a wide angle and a portrait (short telephoto).

I've been taking photos regularly since I was a boy so I guess I'm a bit of an old fogey and have never owned a zoom lens. Prime lenses were always said to be of higher optical quality and thats what I've always had.

Is that still true, because if it is I'll get a 20mm F2.8 and a 80mm F1.8 - both of which will cost me significantly less than the L lens equivalents.

By the way, this is a great Forum and has been a huge help. Thanks to all.

[TimNYC]

Still true,Andrew. just remember that 20mm on the 10D will really be a 32mm :)

[AndrewEllinas]

Yes the 1.6 multiplication factor is a big problem and one that I am certain Canon will eventually crack with new DSLRs and realistic prices.

Its just not economical to get a prime canon lens wider than 20mm.

[Longwatcher]

Technically it is still true that primes are better then zooms, but some of the "L" zooms are at least as good if not better then most of the non-L primes and a couple of the "L" primes.

Of note: I have noted over the last year that a newer lens will almost always be superior to a lens I have had for more then a year (at least I until I send it in for repair).

The zoom lenses of today are far superior to what they were 10 or more years ago and "L" glass of any type is not going to usually make a huge difference one way or the other, but if a perfectionist, stick to primes. To me apeture is what is most useful of going to primes over zooms (that and cost).

I will pit the 70-200/2.8L (w/wo IS) against most of the primes on the canon list with no noticeable difference in terms of sharpness [okay I may be getting carried away here, but you get my point].

The choice is that touch extra bit of aperture/sharpness over a lot of flexability.

Just my opinion,

[DaveG]

AndrewEllinas wrote:
I've had my 10D nearly a month now with a 50mm F1.8 and a 28-90mm F4/5.6 that I've borrowed from my daughter.

I want to buy some lenses, a wide angle and a portrait (short telephoto).

I've been taking photos regularly since I was a boy so I guess I'm a bit of an old fogey and have never owned a zoom lens. Prime lenses were always said to be of higher optical quality and thats what I've always had.

Is that still true, because if it is I'll get a 20mm F2.8 and a 80mm F1.8 - both of which will cost me significantly less than the L lens equivalents.

By the way, this is a great Forum and has been a huge help. Thanks to all.

You might want to think about the 100 mm f2. It'd give you the reach of a 160 and with blazing fast speed.

[CyberDyneSystems]

I have recently aquired my first "top shelf" prime.

It is staggereingly superior to any zoom I have used. I resisted this peice of info as over exagerated for a while,.. but for me the proof is now in front of my eyes. I do not know that all Primes are this good, but I have to admit that I am not going to buy another zoom.

The eye opener was how little I missed the zoom on my telephoto. I went form a 50-500mm to a 500mm f/4.5 prime.

I do not miss the 50-499mm often :D if at all.

[EXA1a]

I've read a lot of comments on sharpness and contrast of lenses. One thing was rarely if at all mentioned: the distortion created by zoom lenses. When you shoot wildlife or portraits, it doesn't make a difference. But shooting buildings or horizons, having straight lines close to the edge of the frame, you see a barrel distortion at the short end and a pincushion at the long end of the focal length. There is only the middle zoom range without a dirtortion.
Example: The superb portfolio of Fred Vnoucek (mentioned in another thread) contains an amazing shot of three beautiful birds on the beach ('Threesome')with a water horizon in the background. That horizon is slightly bent: http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1720068&size=md
Don't understand me wrong: I admire Fred for these outstanding pictures and for 99% of them it doesn't matter, but it's a good example.
You might say 'it's just Sigma glass' but I'm convinced that this kind of distortion happens with almost all zoom lenses - even Canon's L series.
In contrast, good prime lenses exhibit only very, very slight distortions.

Finally: a good mixture of primes and zooms makes a good lens selection. In some situations you need a zoom because you'd loose the shot while changing lenses, in other situations you have enough time to switch to the perfect lens.

--Jens--

[rdenney]

AndrewEllinas wrote:
I've had my 10D nearly a month now with a 50mm F1.8 and a 28-90mm F4/5.6 that I've borrowed from my daughter.

I want to buy some lenses, a wide angle and a portrait (short telephoto).

I've been taking photos regularly since I was a boy so I guess I'm a bit of an old fogey and have never owned a zoom lens. Prime lenses were always said to be of higher optical quality and thats what I've always had.

Is that still true, because if it is I'll get a 20mm F2.8 and a 80mm F1.8 - both of which will cost me significantly less than the L lens equivalents.

By the way, this is a great Forum and has been a huge help. Thanks to all.

Yes, even modest primes are as good as expensive zooms, and good primes are best of all.

But there are some factors you may not have considered. One is that the overriding control on how large a print can be is how many pixels it has it in. Thus, in the digital world, we try even hard to do our cropping at composition time rather than at print time. Zoom lenses give you more flexibility in creating tight compositions in the first place. Cropping after the fact reduces the number of pixels you have and limits your ultimate print size.

Another factor is dust. Each time we advance the film of a conventional camera, we get a fresh surface. But the digital sensor doesn't move and dust eventually collects on it. Cleaning has to be done with great care to avoid damage, and as with cleaning lenses, prevention is better than the cure. Zoom lenses are more versatile and allow us to reduce time the body is without a lens, which reduces the opportunities for dust infiltration.

If you can work around these factors, then you can save a bunch of money, to be sure.

A 20 isn't really wide enough for people who like wide-angle lenses, myself included. I have a 20-35 Canon zoom lens, which is actually rather excellent if a bit slow, but it just isn't quite wide enough. I also have a 14mm rectilinear lens, but that was a Sigma being rechipped for a while and I needed something wider than the 20. So, I bought a Russion 16mm Zenitar full-frame fisheye from Kiev Camera in Atlanta, with an EOS mount attached so that it didn't require an adaptor. The smaller format crops off the silliest parts of the fisheye, and I find that I can make good use of it in most situations without the fisheye effect even being noticeable, let alone objectional. It cost $150. It's all manual, so you put it in Av and stop the lens down after focusing (which is, of course, also manual). Results are surprisingly excellent. It gives you the equivelant of around a 21 in full-frame cameras.

The 85 gets rave reviews, but I personally like short lenses for much portrait work, and the 50 you've been using works stunningly in that application.

For long telephoto portraits, I like the 135mm soft-focus lens. I bought a used one for under $200, and the soft focus is selectable and can be turned off. It's quite sharp without it, and the soft-focus works as it should--it adds a nice halo without degrading detail. The effect is, of course, adjustable by aperture.

You might consider the 20-35 zoom instead of the 20 prime, plus a 50 or something longer, and plus the fisheye. The 20-35 is half the price of the cheapest L zoom and it covers a useful range. It also works very well, giving up performance mostly in the area of speed over the L equivalents.

Rick "also an old fogey, but appreciating good zooms in addition to primes" Denney