I am fed up to the ears with all the guff about 35 – 70mm zoom lenses. I don’t think they are great. I think they will usually assure you of fairly ordinary pictures and are very apt to stunt your growth as a photographer.
Did you ever think that by using a 35 – 70mm zoom, you are copycatting the very same focal lengths used on the point-and-shoot cameras? Why have an SLR and be limited to what lens-shutter cameras can do?
The 35 – 70mm zoom covers focal lengths that few professional photographers or serious amateurs ever use today. (Yes, yes, I know there have been great photographers, such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, who have made many of their greatest photos with a 50mm lens, but let us assume that I am not Cartier-Bresson and neither are you.)
You are right, I am not. I mostly us prime lenses, but I also know that my Zeiss 28-80mm macro is very handy on a stroll anywhere; inside an event, museum, or outside! Using a variable allows quick composition, and the quality of variable lenses is much better today than 20 years ago.
Posted by: Gilbert James | November 07, 2006 at 11:35 AM
How times have changed!
these days pros won't be caught dead without their 28-70mm 2.8 zooms.
Kiu
Posted by: Kiu Kaffi | November 16, 2006 at 05:20 PM
You're right. That's why I always bring along my venerable 16-1000 F1.2 where ever I go.
Whatever lense you use, just keep in mind something a famous, now deceased photographer once said "that there is nothing worse than a sharp picture of a fuzzy concept"
Posted by: donald ostertag | January 15, 2007 at 02:02 AM