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Your thoughts on prime lens.

lil-lynx

Member
Joined
23 Jan 2010
Messages
499
Location
Staines
Hey guys currently , iv got a Canon EOD 20d , with a old 70 - 300mm lens, 35-135mm (ultrasonic ? ) lens and a 18-55mm (kit lens)

Im thinking about one of the 50mm prime lens 1.8 or 1.6/f , is this lens good for animals , people , landscape, or even marco

Also any good settings for outdoor on cloudy days and sunny days shooting animals, people or anything outside (Mainly animals)

Or is there any other decent lens ? :)
 
Sounds like you've got more decent lenses than you know what to do with. What does it matter if your 70-300 lens is old? Some of my old lenses outperform new lenses, and they were built tougher as well. Weight savings would be the only advantage of it's newer lenses (and that's more because they will be made of rinky-dink plastic instead of gladiator-clad metal).

Just about all prime lenses are better optically than zooms set to the prime's focal length, and 50mm lenses are probably the easiest lenses to make, so you could make a case for that, but can you really tell the difference in you images? You've already got the 50mm range covered with TWO of your lenses. Why would you want a third? I'll bet that 1.6f is pretty expensive, and for what? When are you going to use that extra 0.2 of a stop? Even if the 1.8 is twice as fast as the zooms, all you have to do is set a higher ISO, which digital cameras excel at.

All the lenses you listed are great for taking pictures of all the things you listed. But cameras and lenses don't take pictures, the photographer does. So you have to get better at taking those pictures. Getting a new lens will not help you to take better pictures.

If money is no object then this would be great to have because of the weight savings, but then, are you going to carry FOUR lenses in your bag now?

Cheers,
 
Fast prime lens make sense only if you will be taking a lot of aquatic pictures or in dark hours where light is always at the short end. For taking pictures out side it does not matter.
For macro prime lenses are way better than zooms, especially dedicated macro lens.
You can use a dedicated 50mm macro prime lens for general photography with great success.
 
Im a prime man! 35mm, 50mm's, 90mm, 105, 135, 500.. (nikon though). The 50mm f1.8 is without a doubt the best couple of quid you will ever spend.....ever, ever, ever!!! ive got the f1.4 too but dont bother with it.

Imho kit lenses are vastly underrated and there is nowt wrong with your lenses but for £45 the 50mm will fit snugly into your pocket and become your best mate. Stop it down a couple of notches to f2.2 and you have the quality of a £1000 lens! Using just one fixed focal length for a couple of weeks is a great learning tool too, just ask cartier-bresson.
 
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