I guess it's an age old question in some ways. On the one hand, large format photographers do without zoom lenses from day one. On the other hand, part of the draw of 35mm format is getting the flexibility that comes with using some truly high quality zoom lenses. In the consideration of what new lens to buy, I'm beginning to wonder if there's something wrong with me. The Canon 70-200mm f2.8L IS is sharp, contrasty, has excellent build quality, and even carries a $200 rebate at the moment. All this and yet, I find myself pining after two prime lenses that are out of stock nearly everywhere you look. The 135mm f2.0L and the 200mm f2.8L II are just phenomenally sharp, fast, and reasonably priced lenses. I don't need to cover the bottom of the zoom range because I already have a lens that surpasses the 70-200 at that focal length.
I've spent plenty of time looking at chart comparisons and reading reviews already, so I'm not really hoping to compare optical quality here. Nearly every consumer review of all three of these lenses refers to portraiture, or action photos, or outdoor sports, or weddings. I'm a landscape photographer. I want to know your perspective on how many photos I will miss without the flexibility of a zoom lens. I'm wondering whether the clear sharpness advantage of the primes in testing will be significant to me in prints with the new 20+mp cameras. Does IS come in handy often enough when something besides a stationary landscape comes along? What if I do end up expanding my photographic horizons to more mobile subjects?
For me in landscape photography it's a tradeoff involving framing and composition. Sure I could do some of that in post processing with a crop, but why have a 20+mp sensor if you're not going to use all of it? Zooms are most useful to me in landscape for covering situations in which I simply can't move for better framing. If all ground was level and not marshy and I could walk anywhere I wanted rather than damaging fragile terrain, then yeah, I could do without the zooms. In my LF photography I certainly don't have the zooms, but I'm also packing at least 5 lenses most of the time, and sometimes as many as 7. And yeah, chiropractics is covered by my health insurance.
Thanks for the input Hank. It's one thing to change distance to fit a group of six in the portrait and another thing completely to change distance so you can fit the whole lake or so the mountain goat is more than a white spec. Five primes sounds about right (maybe 4 lenses if one is a WA zoom), but it would be five lenses that all fit in my Lowepro Micro Trekker 200. The 70-200 takes up almost as much space as both the above mentioned primes put together.
I have the 70-200mm 2.8L IS and I love it, it has made me a more versatile photographer. The zoom really gives me a lot more flexibility in the field rather than changing fixed lenses all the time. I used the IS in Namibia for wildlife, hardly ever for landscapes but I figured, if I'm paying that much for a lens I might as well buy the best. I handhold the lens for travel photography and portraits so the IS is important.
Posted by Frank Field on July 24, 2009 at 10:58 AM
To me, it has come to be about "keeping it simple." I have a full range of fine prime lenses. Today, they are sitting in the closet nearly all the time in favor of running with two bodies and two zooms (17-55 f/2.8 and 80-200 f/2.8) that stay attached to their respective bodies nearly all the time. I find I get more "work" done and try more images than I did when it too frequently meant changing lenses in the field. While these are top quality zooms from Nikon and the optics are very good by any of the quantitative measures applied, the primes do in fact produce somewhat crisper images. Having said that, the convenience and "ready to go" state trumps my former approach with a bag of primes.
Posted by Kent Staubus on July 24, 2009 at 11:23 AM
With modern state of art zooms, you get better image quality than you do with most so-called "primes." I tried the single focal lens approach a year or so ago and was quite unhappy with it. For starters, I didn't get the image quality I wanted. Second thing was I was constantly missing fast breaking shots because I had the wrong lens on. Third was I was changing lenses more often and having problems with dust on my sensor. Fourth, I had a bag full of lenses and they weighed a ton, had different filter sizes (PITA,) and nearly dropped a couple while juggling them in a blizzard. No thanks! Sure, 30 years ago the single focal lenses provided better quality than the primitive zooms available at the time, but that has been reversed now. I've come to see single focal lenses as specialty items. I do own a Sigma 30mm f1.4 because as a night photographer I sometimes do need a lens faster than my top level Nikon f2.8 zooms. Note the f2.8 lenses you are talking about would offer me NOTHING in regard to extra speed, so I wouldn't even consider them. I also have a Nikon 28mm shift lens, and want a Nikon 300mm f4 VR if they ever make one. I can also see getting a single focal macro lens. But again, I see them as specialty lenses only. For about 95% of my shots, I have a trio of lenses Tokina 11-16mm f2.8, Nikon 17-55mm f2.8, Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR. These give me the quickness and flexibility to maximize a fast shooting D300. I am also getting better image quality from them than I did the old design single focal lenses.
About 5 years ago, I had set up on a frozen river to photo a train that was going to come over a bridge. The snow was deep and I knew it would be a cool shot as the train pushed the snow off the bridge. I had a Nikon 85mm f1.8 lens on the camera. I sat there for about an hour, out on the ice. There was a sudden commotion and a young deer jumped from the brush along the river bank and onto the ice, headed straight for me. There were two coyotes in hot pursuit! The deer dodged me and tried to circle on the ice, only to have its back legs slip out from under it. The coyotes caught up with it, but they too slid out on the ice and piled into the deer. The deer scrambled to its feet and came back towards me, and veered off and headed back to where it came from. The coyotes went after it, spotted me, and ran off down the river. Here's the lesson I learned. This could have been the shots of my life, and there I was with a stupid 85mm lens on and didn't have even a cheap 18-55mm type zoom with me to even attempt a lens change. The whole advantage a DSLR has over other camera systems is its speed and flexibility. I avoid crippling mine with single focal lenses unless they are absolutely necessary. There is NO advantage to the single focal lenses, other than cost for just one perhaps. Those things get way over hyped on internet forums, IMO. All of the pros I know use zooms now for most of their photography, and there are good reasons for that. If you don't, you miss shots.
Kent in SD
Posted by Howard Cihak on July 24, 2009 at 12:25 PM
Here's how I figure it. If you've got a 135 and a 200 prime, and your ideal composition is 175mm, you're going to have to crop the 135mm shot. That means discarding about 23% of the original image area AND 23% OF THE ORIGINAL IMAGE RESOLUTION! Compare 77% of the resolution numbers of your 135 prime to the resolution of the 70-200 at 135mm. I think you'll be surprised.
LF shooters use primes because they have no other choice. Also, LF is much more forgiving when you crop and discard part of the image. A 24x36 sensor isn't nearly so forgiving.
Posted by Kent Mearig on July 24, 2009 at 12:46 PM
I value your opinions a lot, and so far, this is shaping up to be a pretty one sided argument. I'm fairly convinced enough that I'll probably be adding the 70-200mm f2.8L IS to "complete" my lens lineup. It seems that the advantage in functionality of the variable focal length outweighs the slight optical advantage (sometimes speed, size, and weight mounted) of a lens optimized for a fixed focal length.
It's still hard for me to believe nobody is going to defend the alternative. As of right now, I still consider the 135mm f2.0L to be a highly desirable specialty lens, but maybe it's uses are not so nature/landscape photographer oriented. Feel free to keep this discussion going, and I'll chime in after I've played with the new lens on a couple trips.
Posted by Kent Staubus on July 24, 2009 at 12:55 PM
Other Kent--
There generally is no "slight optical advantage" for single focal lenses, at least if you're comparing them to state of art zooms. There can be a speed advantage if you're talking about f1.4 lenses, and your kind of photography can make use of that.
I've found one place where a zoom lens will let you down: with a teleconverter. My 90-250mm f2.8 is a fine lens, but with a 2.0 teleconverter it's pretty soft; by comparison, my 300mm f2.8 works superbly with my 2.0 teleconverter, producing very sharp images.
The lenses are all Zuiko (Olympus). I've had long talks with service techs at Olympus and they've confirmed it to me. Foxed glass is superior to zoom glass in combination with a teleconverter.
Special purpose lenses are a different subject. Even with a stable full of zooms and other primes I absolutely lust for an 85mm f/1.4. Sure it's well covered by my 80-200mm f/2.8, but that's not a mark against the sharpness of the zoom. My uses are that f/1.4 on a short tele for limiting DOF and managing boke. Even at f/2.8, the 80-200 is no match. Yet the 85 is truly a special use lens, because I would ONLY carry it when I anticipate needing the shallow DOF. Otherwise I'll happily be using the zoom.
And on the comp side of things, I find my long lenses really confining. I've got a 500 f/4, a 300 f/4, and a 300 f/2.8. And I'd happily replace them all with Nikons unique 200-400 f/4. Framing is a big issue for me in wildlife photography because I find that composition sells better than nostrils and tonsils. I end up keeping an extra body mounted with an 80-200 while using another with longer fixed lenses. And I usually manage to sell more from the shorter zoom than from the long prime.
As a person who owes the 70-200/2.8 IS and the 135L, I can comment on the uses of both. Yes for most to all portrait shots, especially with the ability to move aruond I would reach for the 135, but for landscapes, its always the versatile 70-200, that is on my body.
Though the prime will be sharper, the fact that you are shooting landscape, does not really warrant that amount of sharpness, and the image quality, contrast and sharpness from the 70-200 is more than awesome enough. Additionally, like many people mentioned before, it is very versatile and gives you a choice to compose exactly what you want and not worry about cropping.
The one place where 135L maybe an advantage might be when you are stuck in a dusk time, and trying to take a picture, using relative fast shutter, as the 135 is 1stop faster. But if landscapes is your focus, by and large, 70-200 is the way to go.
To me, it has come to be about "keeping it simple." I have a full range of fine prime lenses. Today, they are sitting in the closet nearly all the time in favor of running with two bodies and two zooms (17-55 f/2.8 and 80-200 f/2.8) that stay attached to their respective bodies nearly all the time. I find I get more "work" done and try more images than I did when it too frequently meant changing lenses in the field. While these are top quality zooms from Nikon and the optics are very good by any of the quantitative measures applied, the primes do in fact produce somewhat crisper images. Having said that, the convenience and "ready to go" state trumps my former approach with a bag of primes.
Early on, I gave a lot of thought to the zooms vs prime. Ultimately, I went with the 24-70 2.8 and the 70-200 2.8, plus a couple of primes (180 macro and 300 f4). Here was my logic:
A bagful of primes to cover 24-200 weighs a lot (especially on a trail) and cost even more.
With those two zooms, I am not giving up much on image quality. Some, but not much.
Zooming with the feet works if the perspective doesn't change. For my shooting style, it does.
Zooming with the feet doesn't work with fast moving objects, such as athletes and small children.
Lens speed wa a consideration, for focussing and action, so the f4-f5.6 super zooms were not a consideration, even though they cost far less.
If I regularly found myself in a situation where one particular focal length was being used regularly, I would buy a prime. Thus the 180 macro and the 300 f4.
This combination has worked for me and nobody has ever complained about a lack of sharpness.
If money was not an issue (where's that winning lattery ticket?) and I didn't have to carry a lot of lenses for a particular use, I probably would own a few more primes in the 35-200 focal lengths, but I just don't see the tradeoff for cost vs convenience vs quality as being worth spending the money for, for what I do.
With regards to large format, you learn to ignore the fact that you don't have zooms. It is a very different thought process and different operational process. Speed and flexibility are not a major consideration with LF. It also has the advantage that if you need to crop down a bit, you have a much larger capture to work with. A 50% cropping of a 4x5 is still larger than a 35 mm frame.
Posted by Darren Huski on July 25, 2009 at 3:30 PM
As a LF guy I lived with single focal length, but with the DSLR I find the ease and quality of zooms are the way to go. With LF I have a huge pack, and even with just three lenses it is alot to wrangle and my focal lengths are limited, especially on the long end.
So with my DSLR I now just use two lenses 10-20 and a 70-200. A lightweight kit that covers alot of range.
BTW-I am suprised no one has suggested that for landscape that the 70-200 f/4 IS is probably the best bet. It's cheaper, smaller and lighter than the f/2.8 and it is really sharp.
No doubt the f/2.8 is nice, but for the hiker/landscape person the f/4 is really a gem. It is sharp at f/4 and the IS is great for handholding.
Discussion
15 repliesI've spent plenty of time looking at chart comparisons and reading reviews already, so I'm not really hoping to compare optical quality here. Nearly every consumer review of all three of these lenses refers to portraiture, or action photos, or outdoor sports, or weddings. I'm a landscape photographer. I want to know your perspective on how many photos I will miss without the flexibility of a zoom lens. I'm wondering whether the clear sharpness advantage of the primes in testing will be significant to me in prints with the new 20+mp cameras. Does IS come in handy often enough when something besides a stationary landscape comes along? What if I do end up expanding my photographic horizons to more mobile subjects?
Thanks for giving this some thought.
About 5 years ago, I had set up on a frozen river to photo a train that was going to come over a bridge. The snow was deep and I knew it would be a cool shot as the train pushed the snow off the bridge. I had a Nikon 85mm f1.8 lens on the camera. I sat there for about an hour, out on the ice. There was a sudden commotion and a young deer jumped from the brush along the river bank and onto the ice, headed straight for me. There were two coyotes in hot pursuit! The deer dodged me and tried to circle on the ice, only to have its back legs slip out from under it. The coyotes caught up with it, but they too slid out on the ice and piled into the deer. The deer scrambled to its feet and came back towards me, and veered off and headed back to where it came from. The coyotes went after it, spotted me, and ran off down the river. Here's the lesson I learned. This could have been the shots of my life, and there I was with a stupid 85mm lens on and didn't have even a cheap 18-55mm type zoom with me to even attempt a lens change. The whole advantage a DSLR has over other camera systems is its speed and flexibility. I avoid crippling mine with single focal lenses unless they are absolutely necessary. There is NO advantage to the single focal lenses, other than cost for just one perhaps. Those things get way over hyped on internet forums, IMO. All of the pros I know use zooms now for most of their photography, and there are good reasons for that. If you don't, you miss shots.
Kent in SD
LF shooters use primes because they have no other choice. Also, LF is much more forgiving when you crop and discard part of the image. A 24x36 sensor isn't nearly so forgiving.
It's still hard for me to believe nobody is going to defend the alternative. As of right now, I still consider the 135mm f2.0L to be a highly desirable specialty lens, but maybe it's uses are not so nature/landscape photographer oriented. Feel free to keep this discussion going, and I'll chime in after I've played with the new lens on a couple trips.
There generally is no "slight optical advantage" for single focal lenses, at least if you're comparing them to state of art zooms. There can be a speed advantage if you're talking about f1.4 lenses, and your kind of photography can make use of that.
Kent in SD
The lenses are all Zuiko (Olympus). I've had long talks with service techs at Olympus and they've confirmed it to me. Foxed glass is superior to zoom glass in combination with a teleconverter.
And on the comp side of things, I find my long lenses really confining. I've got a 500 f/4, a 300 f/4, and a 300 f/2.8. And I'd happily replace them all with Nikons unique 200-400 f/4. Framing is a big issue for me in wildlife photography because I find that composition sells better than nostrils and tonsils. I end up keeping an extra body mounted with an 80-200 while using another with longer fixed lenses. And I usually manage to sell more from the shorter zoom than from the long prime.
Though the prime will be sharper, the fact that you are shooting landscape, does not really warrant that amount of sharpness, and the image quality, contrast and sharpness from the 70-200 is more than awesome enough. Additionally, like many people mentioned before, it is very versatile and gives you a choice to compose exactly what you want and not worry about cropping.
The one place where 135L maybe an advantage might be when you are stuck in a dusk time, and trying to take a picture, using relative fast shutter, as the 135 is 1stop faster. But if landscapes is your focus, by and large, 70-200 is the way to go.
A bagful of primes to cover 24-200 weighs a lot (especially on a trail) and cost even more.
With those two zooms, I am not giving up much on image quality. Some, but not much.
Zooming with the feet works if the perspective doesn't change. For my shooting style, it does.
Zooming with the feet doesn't work with fast moving objects, such as athletes and small children.
Lens speed wa a consideration, for focussing and action, so the f4-f5.6 super zooms were not a consideration, even though they cost far less.
If I regularly found myself in a situation where one particular focal length was being used regularly, I would buy a prime. Thus the 180 macro and the 300 f4.
This combination has worked for me and nobody has ever complained about a lack of sharpness.
If money was not an issue (where's that winning lattery ticket?) and I didn't have to carry a lot of lenses for a particular use, I probably would own a few more primes in the 35-200 focal lengths, but I just don't see the tradeoff for cost vs convenience vs quality as being worth spending the money for, for what I do.
So with my DSLR I now just use two lenses 10-20 and a 70-200. A lightweight kit that covers alot of range.
BTW-I am suprised no one has suggested that for landscape that the 70-200 f/4 IS is probably the best bet. It's cheaper, smaller and lighter than the f/2.8 and it is really sharp.
No doubt the f/2.8 is nice, but for the hiker/landscape person the f/4 is really a gem. It is sharp at f/4 and the IS is great for handholding.