Monday, June 23, 2008

Lenses I like - primes


The advantages of prime lenses are that they are generally small and light in comparison to zoom lenses, and they are usually faster (open to wider apertures) than all but the most expensive zoom lenses. The camera I use happens to be Nikon, and that is largely because I have accumulated Nikon lenses over the years. Good quality lenses last a long time, whereas newer camera models will appear quite frequently. Most photographers build a collection of lenses that suit their particular photographic style, and change cameras as often as technology and finances allow.

The lenses in this lineup are: 105mm f2.8 (macro), 85mm f1.4, 50mm f1.4 and 10.5mm f2.8. These are all fast lenses, and if you went out on a shoot with just these in your bag, you would have a fairly light bag of equipment that would cover most eventualities except for long telephoto. Prime lenses were always the staple of photographers until relatively recently, and that was based on their image quality. Prime lenses are a lot simpler, and therefore cheaper to build, than zoom lenses. Of course, they don't offer the flexibility of a range of focal lengths like a zoom lens does, but you can use good old-fashioned foot power to frame your images.

TFF

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