k. v. rajasingham

Dear hogs, I would like to clear some doubts reg the difference in between a Tele lens, Telezoom and the Prime lens. Thanks in advance for the pain to reply this.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Over the years zoom lenses have improved immensely. The advantage of a zoom lens is the ability to zoom instead of walk forward or backward to frame your image. Typically most zoom lenses are not very fast and they have a variable aperture. In other words, you'll see a lot of zooms that are f/4.5 to f/5.6 which translates to a wider aperture at the short focal length and a more stopped down aperture at the greater focal lengths. Some lenses do not have a variable aperture throughout the zoom range. They are typically larger, heavier, and way more expensive than the other lenses. Most prime lenses are fast lenses with a few exceptions, and they are typically, but not always, professional grade designed for the riggers of the pro photographers that use them every day. I know that Canon offers many prime lenses in fast and slow apertures, and with and without IS (image stability). The faster the lens with IS (or VR as Nikon puts it), the more expensive and heavier the lens.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

Basically, the main differences between a telephoto lense and a prime telephoto are the overall construction quality, usually a faster aperture on the prime lense, weight, and cost. The difference between a prime telephoto and zoom telephoto is usually a zoom range and slightly less image quality versus a really fast, sharp lense.

cthahn

You should start taking pictures with a prime lens, 50mm, f1.2 or f1.8 and learn your camera and the basics of photography. Starting with a long zoom you will learn nothing.

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

A prime lens has just one focal length, think 50mm, 300mm, 500mm, etc.
A zoom lens has multiple focal lengths, think 24-120mm, 70-200mm, 200-500mm, etc.
A tele(photo) lens is a lens has a long focal length higher than 50mm.
A tele(photo)zoom is a tele lens that has multiple focal lengths.

jethro779 Loc: Tucson, AZ

This is the best answer.

rmorrison1116 Loc: Near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

I'm still waiting for the OP to clear the doubts regarding the differences in between tele, zoom and prime lenses. The OP did not present a question to the forum, he made a statement of intent but never followed thru with said intent.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

A tele lens and a prime lens are one in the same, a 35mm 1.8 nikon prime and a 400mm 2.8 telephoto is a prime. If it is not a zoom it is a prime. A telezoom would be any zoom that zooms out to a telephoto, like a 18-300 or a 200-400, or 100-400 vs a wide angle zoom like a 10-24 on a 16-35. Welcome to the hog.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Lenses have improved tremendously over the years, so I tend to favor zooms (telephotos, telezooms). You get an infinite number of focal lengths for one reasonable price. "Zooming with your feet" isn't always an option. I would never switch between 50mm, 85mm, and 135mm. Zooming is easier and faster, with excellent results.

Lots of links.

http://www.lightstalking.com/how-i-researched-my-latest-lens-purchases/
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Zoom-Vs-Prime-Lens.aspx
http://digital-photography-school.com/prime-vs-zoom-lenses-which-are-best/
https://photographylife.com/prime-vs-zoom-lenses
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/fixed-lenses-take-better-pictures.htm
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/content/prime-vs-zoom-can-you-tell-difference

rattlesnakeron

Zoom lenses have a tendency to create lazy photographers. As a photography instructor for 35 years I have seen it happen over and over.

k. v. rajasingham

Marvellous,much appreciated Cristal clear answers. Thanks to all participants

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

I agree. I felt that was happening to me, I was getting lazy. I do have zoom lenses (24-120mm & 200-500mm), but most of the time I use a prime (24mm, 50mm & 60mm Micro).

Bozsik Loc: Orangevale, California

truckster Loc: Tampa Bay Area

That isn't entirely true. Starting out with a zoom lens, if you do your research on the pictures you take with it you can find your own personal focal length. I started with the 18-55 and the 55-200 kits lens that came with my D3300, moved to the 18-300 before I did my homework. If I had been on this site earlier to learn how to do my homework I probably would have opted for the 18-140 or the 18-200 instead of the 18-300. Right now I'm trying exclusively to shoot with a 35 prime. A nifty fifty is fine for a FX camera, but for DX a 35 is prime.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Common usage is:

A PRIME lens has only one, fixed, non-variable focal length... For example a 28mm, 35mm, 50mm or 85mm lens. It can be any single focal length. Some are 4.5mm... others are 1200mm or 2000mm or more! Among prime lenses you can find fisheye, ultrawides, wide angle, normal or standard, short telephoto, moderate telephoto and super telephoto lenses. There are also macro, tilt-shift, soft focus and some other specialized types of prime lenses. They all share one thing... they don't "zoom". They only have a single, fixed focal length.

A ZOOM lens has variable focal lengths.... For example, 8-16mm, 10-22mm, 18-55mm, 28-135mm or 100-400mm, 200-500mm, etc. There's a wide variety of types of zoom lenses!

A TELE-ZOOM is one type of zoom.... It features focal lengths that go from telephoto to telephoto, such as a 70-200mm, 100-400mm, 200-500mm, etc. "Tele-Zoom" is just short hand for "Telephoto Zoom".

There are also WIDE ZOOMs that are variable, but only cover wide or ultrawide to wide or moderately wide focal lengths (8-16mm, 10-24mm, 16-35mm, 17-40mm, etc.)

And there are MID-RANGE ZOOMs, also often called WALK-AROUND ZOOMs.... that go from moderately wide to standard to moderately telephoto (18-105mm, 18-135mm, 24-70mm, 24-105mm, etc.)

There are also DO-IT-ALL ZOOMs, sort of "convenience" lenses that try to cover a huge range, all in one. These generally have to compromise in some performance and quality factors, to do this, but might be convenient for travel, for example. (18-200mm, 18-270mm, 16-300mm, etc.)

In general, the best zooms have been "2X", "3X" and "4X" designs. Today, with advanced computer design and manufacturing, there are some pretty darned good ones up to 7.5X or even 8X. This is the ratio of the longest focal length the zoom offers, divided by the shortest. For example, 16-35 or 17-35mm lenses are 2X. 24-70mm and 70-200mm are 3X. 100-400mm or 150-600mm are 4X. 18-135mm are 7.5X. But 18-200mm is approx. 10X, 18-270mm is 15X and 16-300mm is nearly 19X! Don't expect too much from such extreme zooms. They may be convenient, but to offer such wide range of focal lengths in a single zoom it will have to compromise in some ways! (Besides, one of the primary reasons to buy an interchangeable lens DSLR is because you can swap lenses to best adapt it to different uses. If planning to just fit it with one mediocre lens for convenience sake... might as well save some money and buy a non-interchangeable lens "bridge" camera instead!)

There are even a few FISHEYE ZOOMs (8-15mm, 10-17mm, etc.), ultrawide and largely "uncorrected"... These aren't common, but there have been a few offered in recent years. Fisheye lenses generally give the widest view possible with any lens, 180 degrees isn't uncommon... but have very strong image distortion effects.

I'm not aware of any currently in production, but there also have been a few MACRO ZOOMs. I think Nikon made one in the past... and there was a Vivitar. But this should not be confused with a lot of other types of zooms that claim macro capabilities, but really don't reach true macro magnifications. A "true" macro lens reaches 1:1 or full life size (1.0X magnification). Over the years there have been a lot of macro lenses that only did 1:2 or half life size (0.5X) on their own, using some sort of adapter to give full 1:1. Unfortunately, a lot of zooms claim macro capabilities, but don't come anywhere close to even 1:2. Many of them only reach 1:5 or 1:4 (0.20X to 0.25X). The highest magnification I know of with a zoom presently is the Canon EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM, which can do 0.70X or just short of three fourths life size (I guess that would be nearly 1:1.5).

Regardless of prime or zoom, what constitutes "ultrawide", "wide", "normal or standard" or various "telephoto" changes a bit depending upon the size of a camera's image sensor or the film format it uses. For example, on a so-called full frame digital or typical 35mm film camera a 50mm lens is "normal" (there's actually some variation from brand to brand what's "normal"... ranging from about 40mm to 58mm). But on the majority of DSLRs, which use a somewhat smaller APS-C size image sensor, a 28mm, 30mm or 35mm lens is a "normal", while that 50mm will instead behave more as a short telephoto. Or, on a medium format film/digital camera with a larger image area, a 75mm, 80mm or 90mm might be a "normal"... And that 50mm would instead behave as a wide angle. There are even larger or smaller image formats, both in film and digital.

In the past, in their early days, a lot of zooms really sucked. Most serious photographers avoided them in the 1960s and 1970s, when the first zooms appeared. Tons of junk zooms were sold to entry level buyers. But many folks shot mostly with just prime lenses. Eventually some better zooms started to be offered and today they're tremendously improved and are more the norm than primes. Some of today's best zooms rival the image quality of primes. But primes can still often be useful... they tend to be smaller and lighter, even when they offer 1 or 2 stops bigger apertures. Less intrusive, they can be a lot less intimidating to subjects. Plus working with primes is different... you "zoom with your feet", which might encourage you to explore subjects more thoroughly than you do with a zoom. Yes, zooms can make photographers "lazy"... But they also can be essential for fast moving situations or when the photographer has limited access to their subjects.

My first 20 years shooting, I think I only owned two zoom lenses (one good tele-zoom, the other a rather mediocre wide zoom)... and about a dozen primes. Today I have several more zooms and use them a lot, but still prefer and use primes whenever I can.