Comparing a zoom and a prime lens

[Colin Southern]

I have the zoom lens but another photographer told me in order to get good quality pictures I need to get ride of my zoom lens and purchase the prime lens.

Flat out - 100% - totally and completely - WRONG!

[rpcrowe]

Two final comments...

In the Dark-Ages of pre-digital and pre-zoom film cameras, primes were basically the only way to achieve sharp imagery. The early still camera zooms such as the Nikkor 43-86mm zoom (introduced in the 1960's) were poor to say the best. So professional and advanced amateur photographers all used prime lenses...

Primes had the same drawback then as they do now. Unless, you are serendipitously in the EXACT spot you need to be to frame the image you desire; you have to move to or switch lenses get that image. Unfortunately moving is not always an option and switching lenses (if you happen to have the correct focal length with you) is a process during which you can miss many images...

The only alternative to moving or switching lenses was to use the next widest focal length available and crop the heck out of the image OR USE MULTIPLE CAMERAS... All of my photojournalist friends used at least two cameras and some of them used up to four or five with different focal lengths attached. The use of multiple cameras somewhat made up for the single focal length on each camera. This is still a method I would advise for prime shooters...

In fact, although I shoot with zooms, I still shoot with at least two cameras and most often combine the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and 70-200mm f/4L IS lenses as my go-to lens duo. I can shoot at 17mm or 200mm (or any variation of those focal lengths with the exception of 55.1 to 69.9mm which I don't really miss) and I can frame each shot pretty well the way I want to frame it. I don't have to do a lot of cropping to get my images as I want them. Although extended range zoom lenses are more versatile in their focal ranges, IMO, we have not come to the stage in technology wherein extended range zoom lenses like an 18-270mm can equal the quality of either a prime or a shorter range top-line zoom...

Even the super-expensive Canon 28-300mm f3.5-5.6L IS lens ($2,549 USD from Adorama) gets only lukewarm reviews at Luminous-Landscape.com
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re...n-28-300.shtml
"This is a decent performing lens when it comes to sharpness, but not a great lens. The graph above shows that stopping down a couple of stops from wide open will strongly improve performance (as it does with many lenses), but at smaller apertures diffraction effects start to kill performance."

Add in one more + for zoom lenses IMAGE STABILIZATION... Although there are some very good primes with image stabilization (or whatever any manufacturer chooses to call their anti-camera shake system) most of these primes are in the long telephoto range (beginning with 300mm or so). With the exception of the Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro lens, I don't know of a shorter prime that has IS. Although for most uses, IS in the shorter focal ranges is "frosting on the cake", it is very tasty frosting indeed! My 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens, by virtue of its constant f/2.8 aperture and its great IS capability, makes a very viable low light lens.

I am just guessing, but I would think that if Canon (or some other manufacturer) introduced a 30mm f/1.4 prime lens with IS capability, that would become the gold standard among available light glass and would set all the other manufacturers scrambling to match it...