With the holidays just finished – you can bet there are lots of new camera owners out there. Some percentage of them will be infected with the same love of photography that all of us here at Photofocus have. When that happens, eventually, the question comes up. (Even with those who have had their camera for a long time) What piece of camera gear should you buy next?
As usual, the answer is “It depends.” But you can always be safe with “Another lens.”
Camera bodies come and go but lenses last pretty much forever. In general, lenses have more to do with final image quality than the camera body.
Camera bodies are more likely to become “obsolete” than camera lenses.
Lenses also tend to hold their value longer than camera bodies. While camera companies seem to always be working on a new camera body to replace their last best effort, they rarely replace a lens and when they do, it’s often in five, 10 or even 15 year cycles compared to bi-annual replacement cycles for camera bodies.
Another reason to save your money for lenses is that if you spend all your cash on the top-flight camera body and are left with spare change to spend on your lenses, you’ll do the unthinkable – you’ll stick a cheap lens on an expensive camera body. Doesn’t make sense.
When you look at how long the average camera lens remains compatible with its paired camera body and that camera body’s eventual replacement(s), the time frame can be measured in multiple decades. I know photographers who are shooting with 30-year-old lenses and making spectacular images.
So now that I’ve covered the why you should buy a new lens – I’ll drop in some information I’ve posted here before on the HOW you should pick a lens.
If you’re trying to decide which lens to buy, here are some questions that you should answer (on your own) before you decide to go to the camera store.
1. What is your current skill level? Are you a raw beginner or advanced amateur? What are your goals? Do you want to turn pro or just shoot family photos? The advice I would give to someone buying their very first serious camera lens would sometimes be different than it would for someone who’s been at this five years. Pros need lenses with wide (fast apertures) etc.
2. What subjects do you like to photograph? The lens I’d suggest for photographing birds is very different than the one I’d suggest for a food photographer. Some subjects require long lenses (like sports and wildlife.) Other subjects like architecture require very wide lenses.
3. Will you primarily be shooting indoors or outside? If you’re shooting mostly indoors you’ll have to consider a faster lens than if you’ll just be shooting outdoors. Unfortunately, faster lenses cost more. But if you can’t or won’t use flash, super wide apertures are going to be important to you.
4. How much money do you want to spend? Lenses are like most things – you get what you pay for. Knowing how much you want to spend will often have a big influence on what I’d recommend. I personally think the lens is more important than the camera body – in some cases. It’s sort of like stereo equipment. Every genuine expert in that field I’ve spoken with says to spend the money on speakers. Here, I’d suggest spending the money on glass.
5. How long will you keep the lens? If you turn your gear over frequently, it might make sense to go with something less expensive than if you plan to use the lens over the entire length of your career. If you are the kind of person who hangs on to everything you buy, save your pennies and buy the best.
6. How strong are you? Weight (and size) are important factors in lens choice. I know many photographers who were very excited to get a Nikon 200-400 F/4 lens until they actually had to hold it. The thing is a beast. Are you prepared to carry whatever lens(es) you buy? It’s a shame to buy a lens and then not use it because it’s too much of a hassle to carry it.
7. Which is most important? Price, quality, durability? An old businessman taught me a very important lesson early in life. You can have it good, fast or cheap. Pick any two.
With this information in mind, you should be much better positioned to select the right lens for you.
Before I go on I want to address one common question about the difference between “prime” and “zoom” lenses.
For those who are new, a prime lens is merely a fixed focal length lens. It just means that unlike your 70-200 mm lens that allows you to use focal lengths between 70mm and 200mm, a prime lens will only shoot at a fixed length. Some common prime lens lengths are 24mm, 35mm 50mm, 85mm, 100 mm, 200mm, etc.
Here’s a rundown of the advantages prime lenses have over zooms from my point of view.
1. Habit. I am older than most of you and back when I started in photography, zoom lenses were just horrible. They didn’t perform as well as modern zooms and most of us avoided them like the plague. They were slow, not very sharp at either extreme, bulky and expensive. I just got used to shooting with primes.
2. Focus. Whether you are using auto-focus, or manual focus, primes almost always focus faster/better than zooms. At my advanced age, I often rely 100% on autofocus. I can’t see as well as I used to (it will happen to you too so get ready) and AF on nearly every zoom I’ve ever used is slower and less accurate than AF on primes.
3. Size & Weight. Prime lenses are more compact. They are smaller, easier to pack, easier to carry and lighter so they aren’t as physically taxing as zooms. They also tend to be more stealthy and less threatening to subjects.
4. Close Focusing Distance. Primes generally have a shorter close focusing distance than zooms. This is important to me and my style of photography. I like to get as close to my subject as I can most of the time. With zooms, I have to stay further back. This also impacts hyperfocal distance and perspective, which are both also important to me.
5. Sharpness. This is less a problem today than it was 30 years ago, but in my tests, primes are almost always still sharper than zooms. I admit that depending on the zoom, it may not be by much. But every little bit helps, and the extra contrast and sharpness in a prime lens are noticeably better, at least to me.
6. Less Distortion. Prime lenses tend to have less distortion. Things like chromatic aberration are better controlled in primes.
7. Composition. While we live in a drive-through world, I prefer my photography to be thoughtful and contemplative. The masters didn’t make their photos by accident. They planned them. Sometimes going to great lengths to get one shot. I’ve tried to do that my entire career. Primes slow you down and force you to make conscious lens choices – which force you to make conscious composition choices. You have to think before you shoot when using primes.
8. Cost. The prime lenses I own typically cost less than the high-end zooms. And yes there are cheap zooms but I wouldn’t even consider most of them. So my point of comparison is the higher-end zooms. Primes almost always come cheaper. And you can generally find a super fast, sharp, light, contrasty 50mm lens for around a $100 that makes stellar images with the right photographer at the helm. (Big telephoto lenses are an exception to this rule.)
9. Video. Most zoom lenses don’t work as well when I am shooting video as do primes. They tend not to let as much light in as a prime and the zooming action on all but specialty lenses makes noise that the camera picks up in video mode. Conversely, there are many primes designed specifically for video with quiet AF and big wide apertures that produce amazing images.
10. Better Resolving Power. Some people confuse lens sharpness and resolving power. They are technically different. In fact, if you want to just make your brain bleed, ask any engineer about LP/mm and MTF curves on a lens. There is more misinformation on this subject thanks to Internet forums than you can imagine. But the basic thing to know is that resolving power translates to the ability to distinguish small details. Zooms tend to have less resolving power than primes.
Now everything I just wrote is less and less true as time goes by. The lens manufacturers have done a marvelous job of improving zooms and the difference between the quality of a prime and a zoom is narrowing.
There are also disadvantages to buying primes. You have less flexibility, you have to buy and carry more lenses to achieve coverage of the same focal lengths, and good prime lenses can be expensive.
As for my own preferences, I like primes and I don’t shoot with many zoom lenses. Yes they are affordable, convenient and versatile. But there’s a trade off. They typically have more flaws than prime lenses. I am NOT saying YOU shouldn’t buy a zoom lens. In fact, I do own a few myself. When it comes to big glass, i.e., long telephoto lenses, zooms are something I have to rely on for a variety of reasons. In general, I believe (especially for those shooting video as well as stills on a DSLR or MFT camera) that a very fast prime lens is the best way to go for those who can afford it.
CONCLUSION
The rule of thumb here is simple. But the best, sharpest, fastest glass you can afford and save up for the next sharp, fast lens you can buy rather than settling for something mediocre in the middle. The beginning of this post is the reason for that advice. You’ll have your camera lenses for a longer period of time than your camera bodies so don’t cheap out on the lens.
Good luck.
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Filed under: Gear, Photography Tagged: lens, Scott Bourne 
