Switchers to 2.8 zooms: Did you miss your primes?

In an possible effort to gain some portability, and lose some weight, I'm considering switching to a 24-70 2.8II from my 24L and 50L primes. I'd keep the 135L if I made the switch.

For those that have done this, did you ever miss the 1.4 primes? I know in some situations I'll have to deal with more noise indoors at 2.8 vs 1.4. But I'm wondering if this is a tradeoff I can live with.

I love my primes by the way. Decisions...

Shot at 1.2 or 1.4 (I forgot).

• When you do not need the instantaneous ability to change FL, and you want to be somewhat inconspicuous during your shoot (which is defeated by a big zoom lens)
  
• When you need faster than f/2.8 to keep your shutter speed higher
  

I use some primes, some zooms. Usually I use and prefer the zooms most of the time and tend to use my primes for when I specifically want a very fast aperture.

After getting a dSLR some 8 years ago, I wound up picking up a couple fast primes and found them useful. I also fell into a few traps like thinking that super shallow DOF was great all the time, and not learning how to get a blurred background while maintaining adequate DOF. I look at your sample shot and I see the kind of mistake I used to make a lot and still make sometimes. When you have the desire to take a tightly framed shot like that with a fast lens, you need to remember to stop down a bit or else your subject will look like they are melting into the background instead of standing out from it. Today I tend (when I remember) to only use the very fast apertures on loosely framed subjects where they pop the subject out from the background. In these kinds of shots, even an f/2.8 zoom can be a bit slow.

That's especially true on the wide end. Nothing pulls out a loosely framed subject like a lens like the 24/1.4. Kind of like this example I guess.

Thanks for the insights guys.

Jeffrey, you're right, I do suffer from a mild case of bokeh addiction, that I am slowly trying to train myself out of. I used to shoot wide open all the time, and only recently actually started stopping down to get SOME kind of resemblance of things in the background, for photo context. For that particular shot I posted, I could've done f2 or 2.8 to get the other eye in focus and get some of the mantle/fireplace in the background more recognizable as objects and not just blobs.

This is partially my reasoning/desire to switch to a 2.8 zoom as I'd be forced to rethink how I shoot. I've always shot primes for the past decade!

Excellent point about going wide open only on loosely framed shots as well. I hadn't though of it like that, and may be why I love the 24L wide open so much, as I do get that separation in a wider shot.

jmai86 wrote in post #17344689
Excellent point about going wide open only on loosely framed shots as well. I hadn't though of it like that, and may be why I love the 24L wide open so much, as I do get that separation in a wider shot.

Yes, one cool thing is that for any focal length, the DOF will be the same for the subject framing. So if you shoot a person at 5 feet with a 24mm lens, or 10 feet with a 50mm lens, or 20 feet with a 100mm lens, the DOF is the same in every case if you have the same aperture.

So you can think of DOF simply in terms of subject framing and aperture. So I learned that I love f/1.4 for whole body framing for example, but I want f/11 for a tight headshot. And it doesn't matter what focal length I'm using.

Back to your original topic, once I learned this I found that I use super fast apertures less now than I used to, but I still use them. So I don't know what advice to give overall. In that wide-short tele range myself I use the somewhat slow 24-105L most of the time, and I use fast primes in the same range. It's a budget stretch, but 24-105s sell kind of cheap on the used market, maybe you could save up and add one to your existing kit.

JeffreyG wrote in post #17344696
Yes, one cool thing is that for any focal length, the DOF will be the same for the subject framing. So if you shoot a person at 5 feet with a 24mm lens, or 10 feet with a 50mm lens, or 20 feet with a 100mm lens, the DOF is the same in every case if you have the same aperture.

So you can think of DOF simply in terms of subject framing and aperture. So I learned that I love f/1.4 for whole body framing for example, but I want f/11 for a tight headshot. And it doesn't matter what focal length I'm using.

This tip was gold in and of itself! I had always been a foot zoomer with primes, which is why I always sort of scoffed at mid zooms, but I had never considered foot zooming for depth of field control as well. My main priority when I'm not doing landscapes is subject isolation, so I've just avoided 2.8 or slower mid zooms altogether. I suppose my main goal in this post was to see if I can do more with less. My hesitation with going 2.8 was the subject isolation concern, but now it seems I can actually get around this somewhat by working with subject distance.

I considered buying the 24-105L but that would just make my "collection" far too large for my liking, and would extend my budget cap too much for a hobby. I'm a hobbyist first and foremost, so cost-per-use is a metric I consider a lot. Of course I'd love to have it all but that cost-per-use ratio gets slimmer with the number of lenses I have/money I spend.

Now I'm thinking I can replace the 24L and 50L with the 24-70 2.8 and just get in closer at the 24 end to replicate DOF at 1.4, while being more careful with distortion. This would make my 16-35 F4 a bit redundant since I'd then only use it at 16mm mostly, so I could do a 14L. I rarely use the 70-300L too, so I could get rid of that to fund a 14L, and maybe add a 1.4x TC for my 135L for a bit of extra reach when I need it.

This would make a 14L, 24-70L, 135L / 200 via 1.4x kit. I like this idea...

Thanks a lot, this changes everything!

I've considered the same thing but i really like the primes too much to sell them off. i had the original 24-70 and i liked it a lot. I cannot justify all 3.

Waiting on the Sigma 24-70 F/2.0

then i wont miss my primes