Mornnb wrote in post #17138222
It's not necessarily the case with todays zooms that they are a 'compromise'... I choose the 24-70mm f2.8 II over primes most of the time. Why? I think it's the best lens available. It's as sharp as any prime, I can see this when using it on a Sony a7R, it delivers enough resolution for 100% crops to look pretty good on that 36MP sensor, the lens out resolves Canon bodies. It also offers a colour rendering and high contrast punch that few primes match.
The 24-70mm f2.8 II and 70-200mm f2.8 IS II have changed the debate for me... primes no longer offer any image quality advantage over zooms. So now it's just a question of aperture vs flexible focal length.
"Image quality" is a broad term.
While the zooms are uber sharp, the 24-70 range is not particularly inspiring for day to day snapshots, and for those types of shots, bokeh, contrast, and color FAR EXCEED sharpness. Hell, I'm a 50 shooter, and to get me to the bokeh sweet spot, I'de have to open up to F0.95 to be completely happy. A 24-70 has a hard time even competing with a 50mm F1.8 as far as I'm concerned.
Snapshots dont get printed big, and viewed at 800x1200 at most, and at those sizes, there's hardly any difference in sharpness SOOC, add some processing, and it's imperceptible..... however, dat bokeh! Even in small prints in dat F1.2 is pretty damn apparent. The 70-200 telezoom look is apparent as well, it's a nice look.
as a working lens, the 24-70 is nice. It's a "get the shot" (beloved group photo lens) type lens, where primes.... you shoot them when you dont care to get every single shot . You use them for the isolation which makes the image pop, and it's the final image you care about, not the technical sharpness.
Sony A7siii/A7iii/ZV-1 - FE 24/1.4 - SY 24/2.8 - FE 35/2.8 - FE 50/1.8 - FE 85/1.8 - F 600/5.6 - CZ 100-300 - Tamron 17-28/2.8 - 28-75/2.8 - 28-200 RXD
Panasonic G9 - Laowa 7.5/2 - PL 15/1.7 - P 42.5/1.8 - OM 75/1.8 - PL 10-25/1.7 - P 12-32 - P 14-140