You can only have 2 primes

I have shot with two manual focus primes for several years now. I did try a zoom but sold it shortly after buying. The Voigtlander 65mm/f2 is practically glued to my Sony A7R2 with the Tokina 20mm/f2 getting some use. I have been eyeing the Samyang 135mm/1.8 AF for my dim (dog in motion) photos though as I'm getting older and slower.

I think I own 5 primes but basically only use 2 of them. I have 28mm DX, 35, 90(macro), 105(macro) AI and 200 AI but typically only use the 35 and 90. I use the 35 because it is f1.8 and the 90 because it focuses to 1:1, otherwise all of my photography is with zooms. If I had to use only primes, my best compromise for wide angle might be 28mm, and for something longer I would have to go somewhere around 105, maybe 135.

28mm for wide angle shots, 50mm for portraits and getting in a little closer.

Interesting thread to me as it’s what I just switched to. I carry a 35 2.0 and an 85 1.4 .

17mm 1.8, 45mm 1.8 MFT primes

jptsr1 said:

Interesting thread to me as it’s what I just switched to. I carry a 35 2.0 and an 85 1.4 .

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Which camera did you buy those for?

LennyLevino said:

You can only have two prime lenses (no zooms) for general and travel photography. What focal lengths do you choose?

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What a ridiculous supposition, but okay I'll play. For my APS-C Canon 90D I would need a fast wide angle suitable for indoors and long telephoto for wildlife...

Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Canon EF would work for wide angle.
Oops! No long telephoto primes are within my price range or weight requirements, so I wouldn't bother.

Therefore, I wouldn't bother with any of it and would simply shoot with my iPhone and sell off all the rest of my photo gear.

--
Regards, Gordon
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Photography since 1950 • Digital since 1999
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You didn't specify the format, So I will assume you are asking about full-frame cameras. A 35mm f/1.8 and a 105mm f/2.8 macro capable lens like the Nikkor Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S.


On a full frame format camera, 35mm is an excellent medium wide-angle focal length useful for everything from landscapes to buildings to environmental portraits. f/2 because it is much smaller and less expensive than a 35mm f/1.4.

The 105mm macro-capable lens is for close-ups and portraits.
With the full frame 45mp Nikon Z 7Ii and Z 8 cameras, I can switch to DX (APS-C) crop or crop during processing and still have ~20mp image resolution if I need tighter framing.

--
Ellis Vener
To see my work, please visit http://www.ellisvener.com
I am on Instagram @EllisVenerStudio
"It's not about the f-stop." -Jay Maisel
Don't be "a photographer." Be photographing. (Paraphrasing William Faulkner's advice to writers.)

Gordon W said:

LennyLevino said:

You can only have two prime lenses (no zooms) for general and travel photography. What focal lengths do you choose?

Click to expand...

What a ridiculous supposition, but okay I'll play. For my APS-C Canon 90D I would need a fast wide angle suitable for indoors and long telephoto for wildlife...

Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Canon EF would work for wide angle.
Oops! No long telephoto primes are within my price range or weight requirements, so I wouldn't bother.

Therefore, I wouldn't bother with any of it and would simply shoot with my iPhone and sell off all the rest of my photo gear.

Click to expand...

Don't take this so seriously. ;-) It's just for fun.

LennyLevino said:

You can only have two prime lenses (no zooms) for general and travel photography. What focal lengths do you choose?

You have to do all of your future standard photography with these two lenses only.

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Why? If this was just a mind exercise it would be fun, but you seem to be seeking practical advice. It can be a pain swapping lenses constantly on a trip, especially if you aren't traveling alone. Sure, it can be done, but it requires very patient travel partners, and many scenes won't benefit much from shooting with a prime. It's even more problematic for recording family events. Do you really want the birthday kid to hold their breath while blowing out the candles because you don't have the right lens on? Or need to get up in their face because the lens you have on requires it? With nothing longer than 50mm (as most have been choosing as their longest lens), you aren't going to be doing much shooting at sports events or the school Christmas concert.

There are very good reasons the standard kit lenses these days are almost always zooms. Sure, they have compromises (in speed, mostly), but they're modest compared to zooms of the past, and modern cameras can handle so much higher ISO settings that the zooms are more practical than they once were. Kit zooms are also ludicrously inexpensive in most cases (especially used). By all means have the primes for the situations where they're optimal, such as indoors in low light, or when you want the very best IQ and have the time to set up the shot, but general social and vacation photography are often best served with a zoom covering the most popular focal lengths. There's no good reason you can't have both primes and a standard zoom.

tbcass said:

Gordon W said:

LennyLevino said:

You can only have two prime lenses (no zooms) for general and travel photography. What focal lengths do you choose?

Click to expand...

What a ridiculous supposition, but okay I'll play. For my APS-C Canon 90D I would need a fast wide angle suitable for indoors and long telephoto for wildlife...

Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Canon EF would work for wide angle.
Oops! No long telephoto primes are within my price range or weight requirements, so I wouldn't bother.

Therefore, I wouldn't bother with any of it and would simply shoot with my iPhone and sell off all the rest of my photo gear.

Click to expand...

Don't take this so seriously. ;-) It's just for fun.

Click to expand...

But I wasn't being serious, seriously. You missed my sarcasm.

Taking your statement at face value, “you can only have two primes” implies that only two of the lenses you chose can be primes. In which case my choice is 14-24, 24-70 and 70-200, no primes.

That isn’t what you meant though.

What I think you meant was “you can have two primes only” nothing but two primes. In which case 35 and 85 but I’ll probably not bother because changing lenses is inconvenient and I don’t want to carry a bag of any sort.

As it happens I have just two prime lenses a 17 f/3.5 and a 300 f/4, they get used very rarely because I have zooms covering 14-200 at f/2.8 and 200-500 at f/5.6. Limiting one’s shooting to a single focal length can be instructive but after a while the novelty wears thin.

... if I had to use only two primes, then I would probably go with a 28 and 50mm equivalent lenses. Though I would probably actually be more comfortable with a less wide type thing (like maybe 35mm eqv.) for my wider lens, I sometimes like a wider image and I would be able to crop in some with a 28mm.

I typically use a 24-120 equivalent zoom and having that (which I mostly use on the wider end of it)< I would probably go with 35mm and 50 mm equivalent lenses. I realize that those two are relatively close together, but then for the far edges, wider and more tele, I'd have the zoom.

I actually have a really nice 50mm equivalent in my 25mm f1.4 Pana/Leica lens for my m43 camera, but one day I'd like to get a 17mm too though the truth is that I have my admittedly very slow (but still very sharp) Panasonic 12-60mm f4.5-5.6 on my camera the vast majority of the time. I'd like to experiment with using primes more often and actually the 17mm one that I don't yet have might end up being the most useful to me...

Sounds easy, but I want the lenses to have very good IQ and to be small and light weight.

FF - 24mm is no problem in all system, but 135mm promes are usually f/1.8, i.e. big and heavy, the Zeiss 135 f/2.8 still is too bulky.

APSc - there is the 90mm Sigma (= 135 FF equiv.), but the better 16mm lenses are quite big (Sigma 16 f/1.4)

M43 - the Olympus 12mm f/2 (= 24mm FF) is known for it's sample variation, but would be small and light, I might also consider the pancake Panasonic 14 f/2.5. And there is the Olympus 75 f/1.8. But then I would also want a small body with up to date AF, which doesn't exist in M43 world.

Here data from ExposurePlot. I only used the Olympus 12-100mm (24-200mm FF), but software notes nearly 6% exposures with less than 12mm. :-O

Perhaps I should really just stick to these 2 lenses, much less to lug around.



BTW, before I got the 12-100 I used the Ricoh GR as wide angle and M43 for the rest. The result was: 2/3 of my photos were made with the GR, only 1/3 with M43.

Ellis Vener said:

You didn't specify the format, So I will assume you are asking about full-frame cameras. A 35mm f/1.8 and a 105mm f/2.8 macro capable lens like the Nikkor Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S.
On a full frame format camera, 35mm is an excellent medium wide-angle focal length useful for everything from landscapes to buildings to environmental portraits. f/2 because it is much smaller and less expensive than a 35mm f/1.4.
The 105mm macro-capable lens is for close-ups and portraits.
With the full frame 45mp Nikon Z 7Ii and Z 8 cameras, I can switch to DX (APS-C) crop or crop during processing and still have ~20mp image resolution if I need tighter framing.
--
Ellis Vener
To see my work, please visit http://www.ellisvener.com
I am on Instagram @EllisVenerStudio
"It's not about the f-stop." -Jay Maisel
Don't be "a photographer." Be photographing. (Paraphrasing William Faulkner's advice to writers.)

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35 and 105mm for full frame are what I would pick, too. You could do a lot of work with those two.

Don

Ok, thought about this, and it would be a 200mm and a 500mm on apsc.

Nice fun in this thread

I think I would pick 28mm that is my sweet spot when walking through the city and 50mm which I like to take to the forest.

LennyLevino said:

You can only have two prime lenses (no zooms) for general and travel photography. What focal lengths do you choose?

You have to do all of your future standard photography with these two lenses only.

Click to expand...

In that case I would have to many different cameras with differen sensor sizes instead.

FI 20 and 135 mm to be used on FF, APS-C, MFT, 1", 1/1.7" and 1/2.3" ILC.

LennyLevino said:

You can only have two prime lenses (no zooms) for general and travel photography. What focal lengths do you choose?

You have to do all of your future standard photography with these two lenses only.

Click to expand...

My 'generally standard' photography is portraiture... so with that in mind... the 2 that I choose are the Nikon 105 F1.4 and the Nikon 180 F2.8... and with the 180... you can shoot a small amount of low light sports and wildlife... portrait samples below.

http://www.viewbug.com/member/selectmodelevents

Now that would work - we have a winner. I have dreamt for years of a DSLR with interchangeable sensors.