Zoom Or Prime Lens?

by - 9:12:00 AM
      Hello photography lover , now we will discuss about Digital camera lens. If i ask you which is the best between  Zoom or Prime Lens? What is your answer? If you ask me like that , there’s no answer. But when you ask me what do you prefer between Zoom or Prime Lens ? i will answer “ i love both of them , well .. i am Fashion Photographer”. Curious why my answer like that, so just let’s start discuss about it.

     If  you’ve read my article about The types of lens that i posted a few days ago, maybe you will still confuse what lens that you have to buy , moreover if you are beginner you must be still confuse. There’are so many lens and it will so crazy if you have to buy all that lens except you have million bucks , well.. up to you.Lens zoom vs prime

    Well let’s start  with remaining  about the basic different between Zoom and Prime Lens. Because it will be so ridiculous after you read this article until done but you don’t know what they are. Zoom lens is the lens which is have many variable of focal length. Simply, if you have lens Kit 18-55mm or 70-200 mm , exactly they are Zoom lens, no doubt! But Prime Lens is the lens which is have fixed focal length lens such as lens fix 50mm.

    Maybe you’ve  read many articles with title Zoom VS Prime?,  I'm my opinion it’s not relevant title , it’s not fair. Imagine , it’s like Christiano ronaldo VS Valentino Rossi in soccer match, who will be the winner? Or Christiano Ronaldo VS Valentino Rossi in GP racing match, who will be the winner? 

     From that crazy illustration that originally i made but i’m not crazy, believe me. We can’t compare between Zoom and Prime Lens like a rival , but it can be compared depends on who’s the photographer. Every Photographer have different styles,different project,  such as Landscape Photography, Fashion photography, Architectural  , street  & etc. And exactly  that photographer style  determine what the best lenses for them, it could be zoom lens, it could be prime lens , or it could be both of them.  So here i will explain the best lens for each photography style. But before it let’s we take a look in detail about  Zoom lens and Prime Lens.

Why most people using Zoom Lens?

    The popularity of Zoom lens start raising because the technology, optic quality and zoom lens material starting approach the Prime lens quality. This thing is  different in 1980s where almost pro Photographer s only using prime lens because the quality is so far from prime lens, it was long time ago. But  At this time, almost three-quarter lenses that pro / amateur photographer have is Zoom lens. It also because the fact that most people who buy camera at first time, they choose the bundling packet which is usually the camera bundled with zoom lens because it’s cheaper better than you buy camera body only and lens separately.

The advantages if  you have Zoom Lens


1. Flexible, the biggest  advantages of zoom lens is we just need buy one lens and it can reach some important focal points. We can say that if you have 18-55mm lens form APSC (crop) camera type, so you  can use that lens for landscape photographs in focal length 18mm or portrait photographs in focal length 55mm. This  is the reason why the zoom lens made for.

2. Cheaper for beginner, if you have 18-55mm for APSC (crop) camera, so it feels you have 3 prime lenses at once: the wide lens in 18mm, standard lens in 30mm and short tele lens until 55mm. Kit lens with focal length 18-55mm  have many weakness and absolutely the quality is still far from each zoom lens on that focal length. But for beginner and don’t have many bucks , this lens is good for you and more affordable.

3. Good for Traveling,  when we traveling around beautiful places but we don’t want  to lost the moment with take some pictures, the zoom lens is the best lens.  With Zoom lens , we can shoot an interesting subject without move your feed approach nor away. You can try with 18-200mm lens, so you can just stay on your place stand for. From far object until near object, all can fit in your  frame. Different with lens prime ,  we have to walk approach nor away to make object fit in camera frame.

4.  The Optic quality of Zoom Lens is not far from Prime lens, do you ever use 24-70mm f/2.8 VR II for Nikon? Or 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II for Canon? Both of them claimed as the super depth lens and reliable for pro Photographers. Moreover with additional features like Vibration Stabilizer where we can save some stops, then maximum aperture that only  f/2.8 can be manipulated with IS/VR.  The prime lens 24mm f/1.4, although the quality more superior but the price is closer with 24-70mm.

5. The Most  Special Lens of Crop Camera  is Zoom lens,the majority of special lens of APSC camera is zoom lens in the market at this moment, except the lens with special usage of course. The special Crop lens usually marked with EF-S (canon), DX (Nikon) or DC (Sigma), this lens available untill small town and the price is quite cheap because it design for beginner and semi-pro camera.

6. Zoom Lens is make sense deal, not everyone need maximum aperture until f/1.4, if you shoot many landscape instead , you more need f/8 until f/16. Meanwhile when you like landscape photograph (20mm or less), you can  still also shoot the portrait (50mm or  more). In this case, this dealing often become the choice for most people and zoom lens is the solution. More over when we use prime lens , sometimes we must change the lens in the photoshoot process, except you have 2  cameras of course.

 
Some weakness of Zoom Lens better than Prime Lens

Do you read my article before about the power of prime lens ? despite that, here i will explain more about prime lens :

1.    The Change of Maximum Aperture 
      All lens that have maximum aperture, it happen when lens are opened widely so it let the lights come as much suitable with its lens diameter. Most of lens, the maximum aperture will change while zooming ( change the focal length) . That zoom lens called zoom lens with the maximum aperture “variable”.

2.    Thehigh quality of  Zoom lens  is Big and heavy. 
      Lens Nikon 70-200mm VR II is good, but do you know that the weight is about 1.5 kg. Let’s compare with Lens Nikon 85mm f/1.4 G which is only an half of it ( around 0,75 kg) or Lens Canon 135mm f/2L .  If you are Portrait/Fashion Photographer and working all day bringing this lens (with 1kg camera), big possibility that you will like working with both of  that prime lens.

3.      Bokeh, low light and DOF 
        In the market there are no Zoom lens which is have maximum aperture more than f/2.8 ( except lens for pocket camera, super zoom or maybe four third). It means, from bokeh segment , Depth Of field control and performance in low light condition are still linger in number f/1.4 or maybe in f/1.2, And this is favorite feature of prime lens that zoom lenses don’t have.

4.     There’s no Zoom in Super tele Lens
        Lens with the focal length 400mm or more length was almost there’are no zoom variants.  Super tele lens is very heavy lens, massive, and the price is too expensive.

Ok let’s back to the problem which is the good lens for you? This is the types of lens depends on your Photography Style.


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