I use prime lenses only
USP 3 is a little ambiguous, unless you’re a photographer.
For many, the words “prime lens” might mean a lens of the finest quality. While I do use the best lenses available at the time of purchase, that’s not what I mean here.
Among photographers, “prime lenses” means fixed-focal lenses. Which still doesn’t help normal folk.
Maybe its easier to explain what a prime lens is by telling you what it isn’t. It isn’t a zoom lens. Prime lenses don’t zoom in and out. If you want to get closer, you have to step closer yourself. If you want to zoom out, you have to move backwards.
Prime lenses have a number of advantages over zoom lenses.
Firstly, high-quality primes are smaller than high-quality zooms.
Because they are smaller, they are lighter.
Thirdly, they are faster. That’s photography speak for a lens that can be used at higher shutter speeds because it is able to let in more light due to a bigger maximum aperture. The bigger a lens’ maximum aperture (the hole the light travels through into the camera), the more light it can let in, the less time the shutter needs to be open. That helps prevent camera shake. This is especially useful when there is little light to begin with. Admittedly, with the astonishing light-sensitivity of modern cameras, this advantage is diminishing.
Faster lenses also mean a much brighter viewfinder experience.
Advantage number 5 is the ability of fast primes to render irrelevant bits of the photograph out of focus. Also referred to as shallow depth of field, this is a characteristic of many of my photographs. I won’t dwell on this. We’re now perilously close to the realms of bokeh from which few people make it back intact.
Lastly, because prime lenses don’t offer a zoom range, it’s easier to get to know them thoroughly. Without the distraction of a variable field of view, I can work faster. I know before I even raise the camera to my eye what I’m going to see.
Most photographers I know use zooms – in fact, nearly all of them. The fact that I don’t helps my photography stand out.
Just to complete the picture for the photographers reading this, here are the three lenses I use most: 24mm, 50mm and a 135mm.
