Well for the past two years i've also been delving into the world of photography, and although i'm not as experienced as many of the Pros out there, i feel the skills i've aquired through my limited experience has given me much insight into this expensive hobby i've added to my array of, uhm... hobbies.. heh.. but yea. so today i'd like to talk about focal ranges and lens setups... some people swear by prime lenses, saying that zooms are too slow(small aperture) and bulky.. and some people swear by zooms(mostly the new kids on the block), that the versatility of carrying one lens to take pictures of everything is more important to them(the prime lens guys would call this the point and shoot style ;) well there are good points to both side, and in today's post i'm going to give yall my opinion on this little debate.
I think everyone pretty much needs a landscape/group picture/wideangle lens, a long distance/sports lens , and a portrait/everyday/walkaround lens. Pretty much on the wide-angle side of things you don't really need that super wide aperture that a prime provides.. it's nice to have but seriously, when are you going to take a landscape picture that isn't gonna be stopped down to improve the overall sharpness and details of everything in the photograph.. also if you're going to be shooting a group picture that needs a wideangle to get everyone in the picture and the aperture is super large, then half the people in that picture will be out of focus... the cost of wide angle primes are also more expensive than the zoom options so for me i chose to include in my lens collection the 16-35mm f/2.8L II.. it's sharp, has a superwide angle on my fullframe 5DmkII and even though it's a zoom, still allows a pretty wide aperture of 2.8(i know i said you don't need large apertures on wideangle shots, but it's nice every now and then when i' shooting in a low light location). Another more cost effective solution i would highly recommend would be the 17-40mm f/4L. Might not be as wide an aperture but still super sharp high build quality lens, plus it's an L!! here's a following picture taken by my 16-35 zoom lens
Ok so i covered wide angle, now the opposite end of the focal range spectrum... the critical telephoto range... lenses in the long focal range start getting really expensive especially when you're shooting with only primes. Plus when shooting longer ranges, i tend to like the flexibility of zooms, since it's tougher to frame shots the way you want them to look while shooting a moving object further in the distance.. my weapon of choice is the 70-200mm f/2.8L with IS. another choice I'd recommend is the 70-200 f/4 with IS.. i really like the image stabilized versions of the 70-200's because with these long lenses used for sports, you're going to get way more keepers when shooting stabilized... also when shooting far distances you don't need as lar
ge an aperture to create decent amount of DOF boceh for portraits, photo shoots, and beautiful candid shots... 2.8 is super nice looking and f4 still offers a pleasant boceh.. =)
here's a sample from my 70-200mm f/2.8L IS showing off the excellent image stabilization in panning mode.
Last on my list is the focal range that lies in between... This is the normal range, and what i like to refer to as a walk around/everyday lens range... also should be good for portraits and photo shoots. For this mid range setup, i SWEAR by primes... some people like a good 85mm lens, which i used to have, but i think I'm more a 50mm guy. plus i already have the 85mm range covered by my 70-200.. so 50mm is comfortably between the missing 35-70mm range that my zooms aren't covering.. the 50mm lens is also very compact and as it's a prime, has a SUPER WIDE APERTURE, IMHO EVERYONE should have a 50 in their collection =)!!! I LOVE my 50mm f/1.2L! probably 90% of the pictures i take are taken with this 50mm lens. it is a challenging lens to use because of its incredibly narrow depth of field, but produces incredible boceh and some of the sharpest photos of any lens in that, if not ANY focal range! . a couple other lenses I'd recommend are the sigma 50mm f/1.4 for a lens just as sharp, a tad slower, but also cheaper than my 50mm 1.2. Like i said everyone should have a 50mm lens since it's so versatile and if you can't afford on of these faster 50mm's you can def afford a 50mm 1.8/f lens from canon, and if you're a Nikon user, they have a similar lens for similar price i believe.. just $100!!! so no excuses!! heh.. here's an example of a photo i took with my 50mm 1.2
my Lil nephew rieley.. =)
so there ya have it.. I might love primes!! and wish i had the money to have all the L series primes, but having zooms are perfectly fine as they are a Lil more cost effective. I actually am very happy with my lens lineup and you can have a very similar setup for even less by choosing the 17-40mm f4L, 70-200 f/4 IS, and the 50mm f/1.8. which are also highly recommended lenses that many pros use.. =)
