Quality of prime vs zoom lenses?

[seth_prince1]

<p>if i'm going to buy a 24mm, 35mm and a 50mm i'd be spending about $900. this is the focal range that i mostly shoot.<br>

so is the quality of zoom lenses in this focal range, and price range comparable to fixed lenses? <br>

i tend to prefer fixed lenses because they are compact. a DSLR-body is already bulky enough. i don't like a huge thing hanging off the front. <br>

thanks for your help</p>

[SCL]

<p>It entirely depends on specifically which zoom lens/es you are talking about - AF vs manual focus, what size maximum aperture, what your budget is. More details needed in order to give an answer of any value.</p>

[seth_prince1]

<p>camera is a D200, but i'm considering an upgrade to the 7000 for the full-frame sensor. so they would be AF lenses. specifically i would be purchasing:<br>

Nikkor 35mm F2.0D AF, 24mm F2.8D AF, and the 50mm F1.8D AF (maybe the 50mm F1.4D AF). <br>

i've figured that these 3 lenses would cost around $900 (more for the 50-F1.4D)<br>

another thing about zoom lenses is that their max-aperture is smaller, and it changes over the zoom range.<br>

i did some preliminary research on one of the shopping sites (which will remain nameless), and the only lens i could find in that price/focal-length range is:</p>

 

Sigma 24-70 F2.8 IF EX DG HSM AF

 

<a href="http://www.sigmaphoto.com/shop/24-70mm-f28-ex-dg-macro-sigma">http://www.sigmaphoto.com/shop/24-70mm-f28-ex-dg-macro-sigma</a>

 

 

 

 

<h2></h2>

 

 

[phule]

<p>[[camera is a D200, but i'm considering an upgrade to the 7000 for the full-frame sensor.]]</p>

<p>There is no full-frame sensor in the D7000.</p>

 

[elliot1]

<p>Seth, shall we assume you are talking about the D700 rather than the D7000?</p>

<p><em>"another thing about zoom lenses is that their max-aperture is smaller</em>" This is true of consumer zooms, but not Nikon's pro-level such as the 24-70mm and the 70-200mm, both of which are f2.8 throughout their zoom range. These two lenses will cost as much as $4000 for the pair new.</p>

<p>Based on your criteria, you should stick with the primes.</p>

[lachaine]

<p>At this point in time, I would say it's all irrelevant.</p>

<p>"Consumer" zoom for your general photography, and one fast prime for the lower light stuff if you do that sort of thing. A relatively inexpensive fast prime lens at say f/1.8 or so is as good or better than the most expensive zoom at its one focal lenght, and it's still faster than f/2.8. But of course, you don't necessarily need that fast aperture all the time.</p>

 

[seth_prince1]

<p>D700 is correct. and i rarely, if ever find i want to go longer than 70mm (i can usually crop in the printing process if needed). if anything, i'd want to go to a 20mm</p>

[daverhaas]

<p>Seth -</p>

<p>If you are staying in the small sensor range (D7000, D200, D300) then there is a 17-50 f2.8 zoom that is one of the better DX lenses that Nikon makes and it's priced used is right around $1,000.00</p>

<p>If you are going to the full frame D700 - then there is a 28-70 f2.8 - that is a pre-cursor to the 24-70 f2.8 - which sells for $700 - $1000. </p>

<p>The 28-70 also will work on the cropped sensor camera's but it will have the crop factor to deal with.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

[ellis_vener_photography]

<p>In optical quality terms The Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G will be very close. You'll lose anywhere from 1 to 2 f-stops at wide open (deepening o the prime, bu=t you'll be gaining all of those intermediate focal lengths ( 25mm, 37mm, 45mm, etc.) You'll also save time and miss fewer shooting opportunities by not having to change lenses.</p>

[Peter_in_PA]

<p>I'll bet that in real photographic prints... any modern lens at f8, well shot, will give you a good image.</p>

<p>zoom- advantages... multiple focal lengths, no lens swaps</p>

<p>primes-advantages... if you want to shoot wider than f2.8, you're stuck with primes. Also, a 50mm f1.8 or 35mm f1.8 DX is REAL small on a camera. VERY hand-holdable. For many of us, most zooms are not even close to this kind of portability.</p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>the 24-50 range is covered by several zoom lenses. their optical quality depends a lot on how you'll be shooting them. shooting landscapes at f/8 is different from shooting events at 2.8 or 1.4.</p>

<p>for DX, the tamron 17-50 has great optical quality and is compact. it's also about $450-$650, depending on whether you go for stabilized version or not. OTOH, for FX, that range is covered by the $1700 24-70 as well as the cheaper 24-85 and 24-120/4 VR.</p>

<p>modern zooms are very good, to the extent where the alleged superiority of primes may not be evident unless a) you are shooting an FX camera and want to use lenses at their intended focal length; b) you require apertures faster than 2.8 for low-light or subject isolation, or c) you are willing to spend a premium for a top-drawer prime such as the 24/1.4 and 35/1.4 G lenses (whose cost is comparable to pro zooms).</p>

 

[mihai_ciuca]

<p>Sigma 24/1,8 and Tamron 28-75.2,8 are a flexible, inexpensive, and with a good IQ solution for you. Every time I use my Tammy on my D700 I wonder how's possible to be so small, so affordable and yet with a so good IQ.</p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>if you are planning an FX move in the future, the 28-75 tamron perhaps makes more sense than the 17-50 if you don't need a wide lens. i prefer the 17-50 on DX, though as it covers 80-90% of walkaround shooting range. the tamrons are good enough optically that they obsoleted my 50/1.8. i still use 50/1.4 on FX, along with 24-70 which is the same as 17-50 on DX.</p>

[SCL]

<p>I personally prefer fixed focal length lenses at the shorter focal lengths and zooming with my feet, saving the zooms for longer focal lengths, but then I also like wide apertures. As others mentioned, there are several good zooms in your range out there with f2.8 apertures and strong reputations. I think if you generally shoot smaller apertures or don't have massive enlargements a good zoom should do you fine, if you want the flexibility of a wider range of apertures or lenses with less distortions, fixed focal length primes are the way to go.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>You cannot "zoom" with your feet. The real advantage of zooms over primes, is in divorcing framing from perspective over the zoom range. No prime can do that, nor can you by walking toward or away from the subject. This is not important to everybody, and it might not be to you, in which case, a prime will do perfectly. I own and use plenty of samples of both.</p>

[newmanuk]

Seth Are you sure about the huge thing hanging off front??

[joseph_wisniewski]

<blockquote>

<p>Luis - You cannot "zoom" with your feet.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sure you can. My old mentor always told me you could, right up to the day he was run over by a train.</p>

<p>And I'll always remember my favorite landscape shooting buddy's last words over in the Arizona slot canyons.</p>

<p>Zoom with your feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee............................................................</p>

<p>Pity the funeral had to be closed casket.</p>

[zack_zoll]

<p>Very funny Joe. I'd say I LOL'ed, but my Y chromosome won't let me.</p>

<p>Seth, others have mentioned that at f/8 or so, there's no quality improvements with primes. There are exceptions, but you'd pretty much need a test chart to find them. So if you're mostly outdoors, especially during the day, go with the zooms.</p>

<p>Outside that range though, primes are almost always sharper. Picture a bell curve, with f/8 being the peak. That's where your images is the sharpest, and has the least distortion and CA and other artifacts. With a prime lens, the bell curve is much less steep. The farther you are from f/8 (in either direction), the more difference there is between a prime and zoom lens.</p>

<p>I also find (and your milage may vary) that the difference in perspective is greater with prime lenses. An 85mm prime seems to compress the image more and a 24mm prime seems to pull it out more than a 24-85mm zoom at the same focal lengths.</p>

<p>I think the proper solution is to get the aforementioned Tamron 28-75 f/2.8, 'cuz it's awesome and a super good deal. If I could only own one lens, even with my DX body, that would be the one. Y'know, assuming I wasn't allowed to use the money from getting rid of my other lenses to buy the Nikon version. Then buy a prime lens in whatever range you use the most. For me, that's 50mm on a DX body, and 85mm on an FX body. That way you have the quality and consistency when it really matters, and you can pack light for everything else.</p>

[model mayhem gallery]

Very good advice here. I use both the Tamron 28-75 f2.8 and all the listed primes 85 1.2l, 50 1.8, 28 1.8. I also shoot

with the Canon 17-40 F4l. If I had to travel and could only take one lens it would probably be my Tamron 28-75 if I

could also take 580 ex flash. If no flash or I was going to also be shooting video the 28 1.8 wins hands down.

Overall, I feel I am ahead having the Tamron and the primes combined which excluding the 85l is still cheaper than a

canon 24-70 f2.8. I absolutely love the primes for video and low light. much brighter easier focusing. also smaller

and easier to handhold steady for long periods.

[leif_goodwin8]

<p>"Nikkor 35mm F2.0D AF, 24mm F2.8D AF, and the 50mm F1.8D AF (maybe the 50mm F1.4D AF). "</p>

<p>The 50mm is probably quite decent, the other two are somewhat old designs and nothing special. Modern zooms use more sophisticated computer aided design, along with greater use of exotic glasses (prices have come down, and varieties have increased) and asperical lens surfaces (moulded or ground, glass and plastic) to improve on older designs. If used on DX, you might well be better off with a DX zoom unless you really NEED the faster aperture of the primes. I understand that the best zooms exceed the 35mm and 24mm lenses you list, but at a price. The manual focus 28mm lenses are very good optically and you might like to consider one if AF is not needed. Sites such as Photozone provide useful tests but bear in mind that they test at one image distance, and the tests are not complete, so do not take them literally.</p>

[carl_becker2]

<p>You might want to read want Bjorn has to say about Nikkors. I use older AIS (24mm - 105mm)primes as well as the 17-35mm f2.8 Nikkor and 28-75mm Tamron. IMHO the zooms are a bit better for corner sharpness but much bigger and heavier. I use the lens that meets my needs at the time. I have never considered purchasing a 24-70mm f2.8 as it is just to big and heavy for me to want to lug around all day. It reads better than what I use but I am happy with prints up to 12x18 with my current kit.</p>

[Two23]

<p>I tried that route myself a few years ago, after reading a bunch of hype on internet forums. The lenses you are talking about are all going to be older ones, made or designed 20-30 years ago. Here's the problems I ran into when using them on my D80 (same sensor as on your D200.) Those lenses have older type glass, older design, and most important older coatings that weren't designed with shiney digital sensors in mind. What I got was lots of CA (purple fringing) from all of them, less color saturation, less contrast, and one one there was a bit more softness (especially away from center.) Think of it this way--just as cameras have changed over the past 25 years, so have lenses. I replaced the old lenses with a Nikon 17-55mm f2.8 and the difference was indeed noticeable. The other thing that drove me crazy was I found I was missing fast breaking shots because I had to change lenses, often in driving snow or very dusty conditions. My own experience is that the old vintage lenses (e.g. 85mm f1.8D) didn't give me as good an image quality as a modern pro zoom. Then there's also the slower AF and major inconvience of changing lenses and the need to carry a heavy bag full of lenses around. I tired the single focal lens experiement and just say "no thanks." The latest lenses such as 35mm f1.4G, Sigma 50mm f1.4G etc. probably are as good as the latest zooms, but I just don't want to go back to losing shots because I had the wrong lens on. Anyway, to sum up based on my own personal experience the older lenses you are talking about do not perform as well as the latest pro quality. I think a lot of the difference has to do with the coatings they had way back when.<br>

As for this "zoom with your feet" deal, depends on where you live. Where I am, I often can't back up or go forward because I'm on a narrow ledge in a canyon, or I'd be tresspassing, or by backing up the perspective changes dramatically. When you start having to crop an image down, you are losing some image quality. Why do that? WIth a quality zoom, I can get all the pixels possible from my sensor from exactly the vantage point I need to be at.<br>

Kent in SD</p>

[eric_arnold]

<blockquote>

<p>Outside that range though, primes are almost always sharper.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>not really. one reason the 50/1.8 hardly sees any use anymore was because it <em>wasn't</em> sharper than the tamron 17-50 and only slightly sharper than the 28-75...<em>@f/2.8.</em> such a generalization will always be wrong. you have to compare specific primes to specific zooms, sometimes on specific bodies. that said, i will say my two favorite primes are both sigma 1.4s, the 30 (DX)and 50 (FX). i think i could get by with the 30 if that was my only lens. that said, neither of those lenses get stopped down very much; i mainly use the sub-2.8 apertures. sigma tends to tweak its primes for better open aperture performance, at the expense of corners. nikkor primes, especially older ones, tend to have better corner performance stopped down but aren't as good at open apertures (there are exceptions, i know, but we're not discussing the 200/2 or the 300/2.8). i have other zooms i use if i need to stop down. also, 2.8 zooms tend to reach their sweet spot at 5.6-6.3, and can actually be less sharp (in the center) at f/8. again, depends on the lens. the most even performance of any prime i own is the tokina 35/2.8 macro, which is sharp at every aperture, but then it's only 2.8. what i'm getting at is there are inherent physics at work, the laws of which cannot be changed by photographers.</p>

<p> </p>

[zack_zoll]

<p>Eric, you do make a good point. I'll admit that I was generalizing about lenses, for the sake of brevity. Primes are not always better, such as when comparing a 50 1.8 with a lens that costs four times as much :P But within a similar price range (say, the 1.4G to the Tamrons), the primes are <em>generally</em> sharper. There are of course exceptions, and there are several ways to measure sharpness: edge-to-edge, sharpness wide open, sharpness across the entire aperture range, and sharpness at an ideal aperture.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, nothing reasonably-priced will excel at all of those, but it's a good starting point. You may also find a lens that is sharper <em>for your shooting style</em>. For instance, I usually do studio work around f/4-f/8, and I find my 50 1.4 AIS to be my shapest lens. For candids I prefer the 1.4G, as it is sharper wide open.</p>

<p>Or at least that's how my copies of those lenses act.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Oldest debate since there are decent zoomlenses I guess....<br>

Since I got all 4 primes the OP mentions, and some zooms covering the same range, maybe one point in the OP is very well underlining: primes are small and light. That they do better than most zooms. And the 3 lenses the OP mentions together versus the 24-70, in terms of weight and size makes sense to me. It's the exact reason I like to use primes (and some primes do deliver performances hard to match).</p>

<p>However, these are not the 3 finest primes you'll ever see.<br>

My 24 f/2.8 is quite nice, somewhat fuzzy in the corners wide open... and I am using it on DX. But, it's very usable at f/2.8, and very sharp in the centre. A good zoom could beat it optically, probably, though. But, f/2.8 performance, cheap second hand and small and light.<br>

The 35 f/2 is not so good at f/2, quite allright at f/2.8 and fine at f/4. I am quite convinced the f/2.8 zooms can equal it (the 16-85VR can equal it). For a DX camera, I would get the 35 f/1.8. It's a better lens. Once you move to FX, you can think again what to do, but in this case, the DX lens is just a clear superior choice.<br>

The 50 f/1.8 is mostly loved because it's so cheap, and extremely sharp when stopped down considerably. f/2.8 it's good (below, to me it is not good at all); it reaches best performances f/4-5.6. Again, something the zooms can match. The 50 f/1.4 really would be a better choice, budget allowing. Personally, however, I never saw the attraction of 50mm on DX: too long or too short, somehow it never adds up.</p>