Heck. I could fly around the World twice and see a lot more $h:t than that lens for 180K.

Zane - No, I do not actually own one of these. If someone gave it to me I'd take it, then sell it for some bushwheels and a down payment on a nice set of hydraulic skis...

There is no one best lens any more than there’s one best aircraft…it depends on what you’re trying to do.

To me a much more realistic debate is fixed focal length (prime) lenses verses zoom lenses. Both have their advantages, and I use both depending on what I’m trying to do or the mood I’m in, but they are not necessarily interchangeable.

Zoom lenses offer tremendous versatility, but they do it with a penalty of slow f-stops, weight, and (often) image quality. That’s a great trade off for most people. Just about anyone shooting for a paycheck is more than happy to accept the limitations of a zoom lens for the versatility it offers, and if you want snapshots of your vacation and aren’t trying to explore your creative boundaries, zooms are super-convenient.

Fixed lenses are (usually) faster, smaller than a zoom incorporating that focal length, focus closer, and have more control over depth of field, assuming they’re fast. They are also (often) sharper. A person using fast prime lenses is going to be able to shoot in lower light, which is usually synonymous with interesting light. And pointing a prime 85mm lens at someone working ten feet away is a lot less intimidating to the person being photographed than having the business end of a 80~200 zoom howitzer aimed at them.

But the real difference to me is how using fixed or zoom lenses affects the way I see things. Without getting too esoteric, the power of photography is its ability to let us see things differently than we normally do. Lenses allow us to capture images in a visual perspective we cannot attain without them. Using that perspective well is a huge percentage of what makes an interesting photograph. A person shooting through a prime lens begins to see the world though that focal length, which is something very hard to do with a zoom, even for people who shoot all the time.

When you change the focal length of a zoom lens you don’t just change the framing, you also change the depth of field (what’s in focus) and the foreshortening effect (how objects appear in spacial relation to other objects). This completely changes the image. A person shooting at 40 feet with a 200mm lens will get the same framing as some shooting at 10 feet with a 50mm lens, but the images will not be identical, or even similar.

By seeing the world through a fixed focal length a person is able to develop a much more accurate pre-filter…they begin to see the picture before they raise the camera. They might give up ten opportunities for an image because their circumstance doesn’t match the lens they have, but the end result is often better images overall. That assumes they have an eye for images to begin with of course, but if they don’t it’s a moot point, as no piece of equipment can compensate for a lack of creative vision.

Whether by coincidence or design, the vast majority of my favorite images have all come from prime lenses, and while I acknowledge the versatility of zooms, I don’t enjoy shooting with them nearly as much as I enjoy my primes.

It might not be the best choice all the time, but there’s a lot to be said for putting a single prime lens on your camera and seeing what you come up with. No…you won’t get all the shots you would have gotten with a zoom, but you might be surprised by what you do get. In fact, you might find that you actually take more pictures because you simply start seeing more images.

85mm f1.4 Nikkor

Because of my lackadaisical approach to bidding on things I'm always surprised when I win something on ebay, so you can imagine my shock when I got an email saying this was now mine.


A Nikkor 300mm f2.8 ED manual focus lens... Many years ago I had the 400mm f2.8, but it was just too much of a boat anchor to really travel with, and being a newer auto-focus lens it cost more than a lightly used Honda Accord.

Since very few people use them anymore the manual focus lenses are comparatively inexpensive, and I vastly prefer manual focusing 99% of the time anyway, so it's win-win. This exquisite piece of glass ended up costing me less than a set of engine mounts, so I'm happy about that.

Not sure exactly what I'm going to use it for...never got that far in the thought process since I didn't plan on winning it.

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Hammer wrote:

Not sure exactly what I'm going to use it for...never got that far in the thought process since I didn't plan on winning it.

There are several STC approvals for using it as a header tank.

Hammer wrote:Not sure exactly what I'm going to use it for...never got that far in the thought process since I didn't plan on winning it.

You shoot airplanes from a moderate distance, that's what. I was near the opposite end of the field shooting these scenes from "Winds of Texas" (6:37 mark). 300mm, on the tripod of course.

Is the aperture manual on that thing too? Hard to tell what's going on at the base there in that small image.

Denali wrote:There are several STC approvals for using it as a header tank.

Ok that's funny right there.

Zzz wrote:Is the aperture manual on that thing too? Hard to tell what's going on at the base there in that small image.

Oh ya...that lens was manufactured about 15 years before automatic apertures were invented. It's 100% manual, without a circuit or motor or electric connection to be seen. Just the way I like it!

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Speaking of weird lenses. I have this crazy 600mm telephoto made in USA by Perkins Elmer ... you know…the Hubble Space Telescope People. I mean what could go wrong.

Anyway, it is solid glass, weighs a ton. Old T-mount, so it adapts to anything. Makes for a great wheel chock when hand propping your nonelectric Aeronca Champ, Cub, etc.



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Denali wrote:.
Speaking of weird lenses. I have this crazy 600mm telephoto made in USA by Perkins Elmer ... you know…the Hubble Space Telescope People. I mean what could go wrong.

Anyway, it is solid glass, weighs a ton. Old T-mount, so it adapts to anything. Makes for a great wheel chock when hand propping your nonelectric Aeronca Champ, Cub, etc.

That's a really cool lens, but for hand propping it's far simpler to just install a mixture control dontcha know

Ok, my one lens (Oly M.Zuiko Pro 12-40mm f/2.8 ) is turning out to be pretty good. I wasn't going to post any results until I had an airplane in the frame but I did some neighborhood shooting last night:

Cat.


Family.


Wife.


Street light. It's really hard to get it to star-flare at high f-values for some reason. Some of my other primes it's quite easy. Had to shoot this at 2500 ISO and use a little noise reduction in LR.

Nice depth of field on the cat. You can almost see the little though bubble with "If I was bigger I'd eat you " inside it.