DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA

My experience with Nikon zoom lenses tells me that the zooms (<4:1) are for all practical purposes, as good a primes, with only a weight and aperture penalty (emphasis on "practical").

nikon123 Loc: Toronto, Canada

A quick response.
I sold two Nikon zoom telephoto lenses because I changed to the Z system, but I was not enthralled with eitrher of their performance. Could be me though! I thought the 24-120 to be really inferior. The 70-200 f/4 constant aperture was just ok. I am back to primes or zooms with less than a 3:1 ratio. I am waiting for the Z 70-180mm Nikon lens, being introduced by Tamron, hopefully, in the very near future.

Rick from NY Loc: Sarasota FL

Hogwash! I would defy you to tell the difference between thousands of my shots taken with my 70-200 or 24-70 zooms compared to my primes from an 11x14 print. Sure I use many different prime lenses when shooting in controlled circumstances or when I need certain characteristics found in the primes (like f/1.4 on my 85mm), but for a huge % of my images, no way can you tell whether I used my 85 or 70-200 at f4 or f11 by looking at a print. Pixel peepers shoot brick walls looking for distortion at 100% crop. Photographers use the lenses that give them what they need and offer greatest convenience.

Canisdirus

An impossibility since you don't have the exact same images shot with a stellar prime.

A great prime...cannot be surpassed today by any zoom on the market today.

Maybe NASA has something...

Rick from NY Loc: Sarasota FL

Q.E.D. Pixel peeping is irrelevant to most photogs.

Moondoggie Loc: Southern California

I recently purchased a Sony 100-400 G Master. So far it’s terrific, I ‘be only shot about 30 photos with this lens .

Tony Hayman

I agree that the quality of a modern zoom lens is between very good and excellent. There are many times when a zoom lens is necessary to catch the action (sports, birds, auto racing to name a few)
The reality is that for those of us who have both zoom and prime lenses if we study our photographs the pictures have taken with our prime lenses always stand out. That is not because the quality of the prime is better than a zoom, it is because when we use a zoom, we get lazy, and our composition is frequently by chance. When we use a prime lens we spend far more time composing the shot, and we MOVE to make it better. And When we have a zoom, the temptation is to stand in one place and go click, click, click is enormous!

MountainDave

I agree that zooms have come a long way in the last ten years or so. I own a few of Canon's finest and use them a lot. The EF 24-70 2.8L II has been my workhorse for years. Lately, I've been going through older images to clear hard drive space and I noticed that a majority of the images that really grab me were taken with primes. There is an "it" factor I can't really define. Clearly, resolution is not the only factor, maybe not even the main factor. I know I look forward to using primes because I expect some special images. In deference to Rick from NY, I don't know how many lay people would really see the difference, especially in prints. But they may sense it anyway.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Modern zooms, as long as you stay in the 3:1 or 4:1 ratio can be excellent. Get beyond that range, and while they may be acceptable (especially for a “walk” around lens or travel), there are compromises in IQ. BUT, they don’t stand up to a good prime in terms of acuity and especially contrast (not to mention size and weight). As I progress in photography (and carefully test my lenses before use), more and more, I’m leaning toward fast primes - the difference IS visible - not just the acuity, but also the contrast.

I’ve tested the Canon 135 f2L against my 70-200 f2.8L IS, and the prime is noticeably sharper and still sharper even with a Canon 1.4x extender. Did the same test with my Fuji, comparing the 16-80, 50-140 (a “red badge” zoom), 70-300 and the 90 prime all at 80-90mm, and the 90 prime was such a standout, that it was surprising how much better it was. As a previous poster mentioned, those images taken with a prime often stand out to me as the best.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

My best long lens is a Sony FE 200-600mm zoom. Excellent IQ across the full range.
My next best, and one I still use with Sony bodies, is a Canon 24-105L lens; super lens.
And a whole let of Minolta AF zooms from eras long gone. All work adequately.

bwa

ORpilot Loc: Prineville, Or

Buy or rent the best you can afford. For aftermarket, I find the Sigma "art" lenses to be excellent. When I shot real estate, I was mostly using zooms from 12-24mm indoors and 24-70mm outside. Most of the agencies were emailing the images and printing on 3 color office printers. the prints were no larger than 8.5x11. and email photos were low resolution so then could send 20 or so images quickly. What this means is that you don't need high IQ or even 60mp images. A fellow photographer that specialized in million $ estates shot everything with 20mp APS-C camera set at about 6mp. Check with your clients and see what they need. 60mp images look great but they can't send them across the internet. Also remember that most people will be viewing images on their phone and not a 27 inch monitor.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

I am using a high ratio (18-300mm) zoom lens on my R7. I am amazed at the detail the sensor and lens combo provide.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I will not pretend to speak for professional photographers. But as a photographic hobbyist, I will observe that every hobby seems to have its proportion of practitioners that can only be described as perfectionists (or in some cases frustrated perfectionists). They seem to know a little more than others, spend more than others, work a little harder than others, carry their noses a little higher in the air than others...you get the idea. I am also a model railroader. In model railroading, those folks are called "rivet counters." The name is descriptive of the disease. The thing is, those folks generally don't tend to be "better" model railroaders than others. In fact, as often as not, their trains don't run as well as those of less obsessive modelers, because time that could be spent on operational considerations or basic maintenance tasks is instead spent fretting on whether battery compartment grills on a particular locomotive model have 10 rows or 11 rows of openings.

Of course, the idea of model railroading is to represent a full-size railroad in miniature...usually in 1/48, 1/64, 1/87 (actually 1/87.1), or 1/160 scale. A reasonable level of accuracy is necessary to do this with a meaningful level of realism. But in truth, very few people, especially old people, are ever going to see the difference between 10 and 11 rows of holes on a 1/160 scale model.

I would maintain that in the case of today's lenses, there are many things that are more important in the appearance of a photograph than whether a zoom or fixed focal length lens was used, at least most of the time. I would also maintain that where there is a difference, that difference may not even arise from the optical designs. I have two older AF-D lenses...an 85mm f/1.4 and a 180mm f/2.8. I would expect that either of these would produce better images overall than the 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom which covers their same focal lengths. The reason is simple...these lenses are smaller, lighter, more agile, and just generally easier to manage than the 70-200. They likely have a simpler optical design, but that may or may not provide a real-life advantage.

What is not debatable, though, is that the focal length of each of these two lenses is very confining. If it's right for the task, it's great, and each lens will do an undeniably great job. But for either lens, that focal length very quickly becomes not right for the task. Now I also have a 50mm f/1.4 AF-D lens. It also is a fine lens that does a fine job. It also has a wider working area...a wider range over which it can be usefully used. The same is true for my 35mm lens, but the opposite is true for the 300mm f/4 that I bought as my first really long lens many years ago. While it's a very nice lens and was quite reasonably priced (bought new), there just aren't that many times that it gets to come out and play.

For me, the absence of any real MEANINGFUL optical advantage from my fixed focal length lenses, combined with the tremendously greater versatility of my zoom lenses, even the 3:1 zooms, means that the fixed lenses stay in the shelf most of the time. There was a time in the last century when this would not have been true. Zooms thirty of forty years ago really were huge compromises, and were quite expensive besides. But it is no longer the last century. And it is not fair or justifiable to apply 20th century truths or biasws to 21st century lenses. I think it was the Luddites who were pretty famous for doing stuff like that.

stan0301 Loc: Colorado

I have maybe 75 lenses - Nikon - but other than macro or really long, almost always use zoom - enlarge to 30” all the time, never a problem, of course use Photoshop and Topaz first

Meganephron Loc: Fort Worth, TX

I’m Nikon and don’t go beyond 3:1 in any lens. Occasionally, use a 2x teleconverter at 200 mm never happy. If you need more than 200 mm look at Tamron or Sigma lenses, high quality, much lower prices.