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The Eternal Debate: Primes vs. Zooms

Started Mar 14, 2016 | Discussions thread
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Ambulater
Ambulater Contributing Member • Posts: 967
The Eternal Debate: Primes vs. Zooms

So I’m in the midst of selling off all my Sony gear on eBay and moving to Fuji full-time. I’ve mostly been a prime user in the past, but that was partly because Sony’s zoom options weren’t great. I’m now rethinking that with Fuji. Here are the two main purchasing scenarios I’m trying to choose between (using current sale pricing).

Prime Based Fuji Kit:

XF 16mm f/1.4 $800

XF 35mm f/2 $400

XF 90mm f/2 $750

Keep my current XF 18-135mm zoom for convenience

TOTAL: $1,950

Zoom Based Fuji Kit:

XF 16-55mm f/2.8 $1000

XF 50-140mm f/2.8 $1400

Sell XF 18-135mm as its range would be completely covered by the two zooms above (Approximately -$500)

Net TOTAL after selling the 18-135mm: $1,900

Basically, these two options are a wash financially. In the prime kit case, I’ll have glass with perhaps slightly better IQ and wider aperture, but I’ll also have four lenses to change out. In the zoom kit case, I’ll have great convenience with only two lenses covering nearly all the range I’m interested in. IQ will still be excellent and aperture is still pretty good throughout the range (I don’t often shoot much wider than 2.8 in most situations). The biggest downside here is that these lenses are huge and heavy, especially for an APSC body (XT-1 in my case). Also, the 16-55mm doesn’t have OIS. So neither option is without its downsides.

So what do you all think?

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Chris Lee

 Ambulater's gear list:Ambulater's gear list
Fujifilm XP120 Fujifilm X-T2 Fujifilm XF 50-140mm F2.8 Fujifilm 16-55mm F2.8R LM WR Fujifilm XF 23mm F2 R WR +3 more
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