p.1 #3 · Are you a prime, zoom or a mixed bag guy?
I selected your third option - though "low light" is not necessarily my main reason for choosing to use primes on occasion. Sometimes the f/4 zoom can be an equivalent or even better low light lens depending upon the situation, subject, method of shooting, and presence of IS.
p.1 #4 · Are you a prime, zoom or a mixed bag guy?
None of the options fit me personally. I am a mixed bag shooter going back and forth between fast primes and fast zooms with the occasional slower zoom mixed in. In very low light I'll almost always grab a prime or two, unless the lighting is so poor I need to use flash, where a zoom is more handy. Lens selection, for me, really depends on the subject matter and how I want to shoot it.
p.1 #5 · Are you a prime, zoom or a mixed bag guy?
I tried to get a wide enough poll, I suppose no poll can fit everyone
Just explain if there is any other reason for you to keep a different bag and I will learn from your reasons. I just did it for the sake of learning other priorities.
p.1 #7 · Are you a prime, zoom or a mixed bag guy?
Dawei Ye wrote:
Primes only out of necessity, I wish I could use zooms though
What necessity? What does a prime to your shooting that a zoom can't do? Distortion? Vignetting? Aperture? all of them?
I'm just not happy with my lens and buying a mixed bag of canon L zooms plus a few primes(I love primes) soon. I'm very keen to know what moved you to shoot only primes.
p.1 #9 · Are you a prime, zoom or a mixed bag guy?
In some cases a prime can produce slightly better resolution - and this can matter if you photograph highly detailed subjects and make large prints. (It probably doesn't matter one tiny bit if you don't do that though.) But here it is important to be away that any resolution advantage relative to a zoom may be negated (or even reversed!) if you have to crop the prime shot to get good framing.
In some cases a prime's performance at the same large aperture as a zoom can be a bit better including corner performance, which could be an issue in some cases.
In some cases you might benefit from the larger aperture more than from a zoom with IS - e.g. a moving subject in low light. In others, of course, the IS equipped zoom could be a better choice - e.g static subjects.
In some cases you can get nicer background blur and other OOF elements from certain primes in comparison to certain popular zooms.
In some cases where you know that you can shoot with one or two FLs you can travel lighter with a prime or two.
My choice is to use, for the most part, a combination of excellent f/4 max L zooms and a small set of excellent non-L primes.
p.1 #12 · Are you a prime, zoom or a mixed bag guy?
I'm having this debate with myself. Like others here, I use a mix of primes and zooms, depending on the situation. If I know I'm going to shoot in low available light I'll use the fast prime, but the zooms (my favorite is the 24-70 f/2,8L) cover so many situations I normally use then to cover events, etc.
Now the debate with myself is this: as cameras get better and better at their high ISO performance, should I plan on using zooms more and start selling off my primes? Even within the zoom category, I've hesitated to go for the 24-105 IS because it is f 4.0, not f/2,8 and I'm afraid I might miss that extra stop in low light.
If Canon offered a 24-70 f/2,7 IS L, I'd really think about selling the 35 f/1.4, and 50 f 1.2 to pay for it.
p.1 #13 · Are you a prime, zoom or a mixed bag guy?
None of the above...
My kit can best be described as a trio of f/4 zooms (Tokina 12-24, EF 24-105, & EF 70-200/4 IS), plus a couple of primes--50/1.8 II for low light and Tamron 90/2.8 for 1:1 macro. The 24-105 spends the most time on the camera.
p.1 #17 · Are you a prime, zoom or a mixed bag guy?
I only ever shoot with fast primes. I enjoy the limits of a fixed focal length and you can't beat the quality of the output which the better primes give. I have nothing against zooms, but since I moved to digital I've only ever wanted to shoot with primes.
A big reason is that the amount of light is a lot different here than at the mid latitudes, so having fast lenses really helps.
