Getting a bit fed up with interchangeable lens cameras

Funny for me I do not like changing lens while shooting but like having the ability to change the lens at some time. That is why I tend to shoot with two bodies with different lenses mounted, a wide on one and a short tele on the other, shooting about 75-80% with the wide.
The other funny thing is that on my real jobs, when I am shooting with a FF camera, all I use are zooms, except for really long teles.
I use to shoot mostly zooms with the medium format cameras as well but they have a tendency to flare sometimes, so I use them less these days.
With my play cameras it is almost always prime lenses, although I can see a use for the zooms. I am with Ray in that even though there is a lot too choose from with the Fuji 10-24, I tend to shoot it at 10 or 24 settings. The things I do not like about zooms with the fun cameras, is the size especially the tele ones, the slower max fstop, some distort a little more and sometimes they feel slower on focus. That being said I will probably will add one more zoom to my collection of, the XF55-200 and XF10-24, with the Fuji XF 16-55 F2.8 when it comes out. Even though it is a lens I will not use that much it will be the lens I throw on when I just grab the camera, just too have it with me and it is also the one that I will be able to shoot with in a moist environment
 
It's funny how many of us have fallen for the siren song of sexy primes, forgetting momentarily how convenient a good zoom is.

John,

You are soooo right. I have these fantasies about like HCB, faithfully capturing life with my trusty Leica & 50mm. In reality, I love my zoom, the zoomier the better.

Cheers, Jock
 
Funny for me I do not like changing lens while shooting but like having the ability to change the lens at some time. That is why I tend to shoot with two bodies with different lenses mounted, a wide on one and a short tele on the other, shooting about 75-80% with the wide.
The other funny thing is that on my real jobs, when I am shooting with a FF camera, all I use are zooms, except for really long teles.
I use to shoot mostly zooms with the medium format cameras as well but they have a tendency to flare sometimes, so I use them less these days.
With my play cameras it is almost always prime lenses, although I can see a use for the zooms. I am with Ray in that even though there is a lot too choose from with the Fuji 10-24, I tend to shoot it at 10 or 24 settings. The things I do not like about zooms with the fun cameras, is the size especially the tele ones, the slower max fstop, some distort a little more and sometimes they feel slower on focus. That being said I will probably will add one more zoom to my collection of, the XF55-200 and XF10-24, with the Fuji XF 16-55 F2.8 when it comes out. Even though it is a lens I will not use that much it will be the lens I throw on when I just grab the camera, just too have it with me and it is also the one that I will be able to shoot with in a moist environment

You know, Bob, it's interesting. Most photo pros that I know use zooms. Unless they are in some unique situation, most pros don't have time for primes on the job. It's the serious hobbyists who love primes, myself included. Are there exceptions? Of course. But photography almost reminds me of amateur radio in this sense. Some hams - particularly the older ones (sound familiar?) love to work with morse code. Younger amateurs and communications pros have no use for it any longer.
 
You know, Bob, it's interesting. Most photo pros that I know use zooms. Unless they are in some unique situation, most pros don't have time for primes on the job. It's the serious hobbyists who love primes, myself included. Are there exceptions? Of course. But photography almost reminds me of amateur radio in this sense. Some hams - particularly the older ones (sound familiar?) love to work with morse code. Younger amateurs and communications pros have no use for it any longer.

I think that's mostly because of the TYPE of shooting involved though, not just whether you're getting paid for it or not. If I'm shooting a soccer game or my dog running around or a parade (not street shooting with the other spectators, but the parade itself), I'll always use a zoom. If I was a pro shooting pro-sports or a photo-journalist sent to cover a story, I'd absolutely be shooting with zooms. And if I was doing model shoots like Bob does, or weddings, I can't imagine using anything BUT a zoom. For weddings, I think a fast zoom or two would absolutely be the ticket. Because those shots are mostly about getting the subject(s) in the frame at the appropriate reach and, in many cases, that's a very dynamic situation where the distance between subject and photographer changes a lot. I do very little shooting at those types of events, so I do very little zoom shooting, but on the occasion I DO shoot something along those lines, I always choose the zoom. And I suspect if I was getting paid to shoot, I'd be paid to shoot specific events and I'd be using zooms.

But for the kind of stuff I shoot as a hobby shooter, it's almost always the kind of thing that I can compose better with a prime. Whether a landscape or an urban scenic or an abstract, I just see and work better with a prime. And for street shooting, a zoom would seem to make sense if I was shooting from some distance, but I generally prefer shooting from pretty closely and having the wide angle lens pull a lot of the environment into the shot. And so for that it's more important that I intimately KNOW the focal length I'm shooting so I can visualize the shot without ever necessarily looking through the finder or at the LCD.

So I don't think it's necessarily the case that a lot of pros tend to use zooms because of how good they are or because they're always the better tools, but because of the type of shooting they're most often doing. For pros who mostly shoot stock photography, I'd bet many use primes. And for the rare fine art shooter who sells enough work to be considered a pro, I bet they lean on their primes a lot also.

-Ray
 
So I don't think it's necessarily the case that a lot of pros tend to use zooms because of how good they are or because they're always the better tools, but because of the type of shooting they're most often doing. For pros who mostly shoot stock photography, I'd bet many use primes. And for the rare fine art shooter who sells enough work to be considered a pro, I bet they lean on their primes a lot also.

-Ray

I hope I did not imply that pros are better with or better at using zooms, it just that many times we neither have the time or luxury of changing lenses. With people your frame size can change in an instant and you need to react or lose the shot. Also with the lenses of today there is not the massive optical performance fall off there once was with the zooms compared to primes. But I also think you would be surprised at how many other types of pro shooter use zooms, even the stock shooters just from the standpoint of convenience.
Example being if I were to shoot a wide angle landscape for my self I would probably as already said, shoot about 6 or 8 frames; 3 or 4 frames bracketed at 10mm and 24mm, or just shoot the bracketed 3 or 4 frames with the 14. But if I were being paid to shoot the same thing I would more than likely shoot about 100 frames including about 6 bracket frames each of both vertical and horizontal and every focal length between 10mm and 24mm
 
I hope I did not imply that pros are better with or better at using zooms, it just that many times we neither have the time or luxury of changing lenses. With people your frame size can change in an instant and you need to react or lose the shot. Also with the lenses of today there is not the massive optical performance there once was with the zooms compared to primes. But I also think you would be surprised at how many other types of pro shooter use zooms, even the stock shooters just from the standpoint of convenience.
Example being if I were to shoot a wide angle landscape for my self I would probably as already said, shoot about 6 or 8 frames; 3 or 4 frames bracketed at 10mm and 24mm, or just shoot the bracketed 3o4 frames with the 14. But if I were being paid to shoot the same thing I would more than likely shoot about 100 frames including about 6 bracket frames each of both vertical and horizontal and every focal length between 10mm and 24mm
Not to worry Bob - I didn't take what you wrote that way at all. I took it just as you explained it, although I hadn't thought about stock or landscape pros doing the same thing. In terms of framing a face that you may reposition a zillion times during a shoot, it seems obvious that you'd use a zoom. Or for a wedding or a football game, or a graduation ceremony, etc. And I din't think it's really a matter of optical performance at all, where today's zooms are so good. And in terms of aperture speed, the pro zooms are pretty fast and for a lot of pro work you're using professional lighting or flash as well. So I fully get what you're saying.

For landscape or stock types of things, I wasn't really thinking about why a pro might use a zoom where I wouldn't, but it makes sense.

-Ray
 
I'm with Ray regarding zooms - I've only owned three of them (EF 24mm-105mm, and M Zuiko 14mm-42mm and 40mm-150mm) and in all cases I shot exclusively at the wide or long end of them and which end was determined by my subject. Essentially any time I used the zoom I would have been just as well off with a prime in that particular focal length. I'm down to one ILC (an E-PL1 with the kit zoom and a small collection of MF glass) which I'll most likely only used for posed portraiture where MF isn't a detriment and an X100S which is my everything else camera. I'm on the fence going back and forth as to whether or not to get an X-T1 (having recently divested of all my FF Canon gear) but I think I've decided to wait it out a bit and see how I get on with what I have and the limitations posed by it.
 
But what I realized is I don't really change lenses (or, in that case, cameras) often enough for it to be a problem. I tend to go with one camera/lens combination for an hour or two and then maybe switch to a different focal length and shoot with IT for an hour or two. So, realizing that, changing lenses is not a problem at all - I don't tend to change them more than a handful of times per day when I'm out shooting.

I can second that, since that's exactly my habit. When I was hiking last weekend (see my thread about the Tannermoor) I carried my 45mm and my 9-18mm. The 45mm was mounted on my camera and I did not change the lens even once - and that happens nearly all the time. I just get the 45mm vision and see only images which require 45mm. The same would happen, if I had a 25mm on the camera, it would just have been the 25mm vision instead.
 
I hope I did not imply that pros are better with or better at using zooms, it just that many times we neither have the time or luxury of changing lenses. With people your frame size can change in an instant and you need to react or lose the shot. Also with the lenses of today there is not the massive optical performance there once was with the zooms compared to primes. But I also think you would be surprised at how many other types of pro shooter use zooms, even the stock shooters just from the standpoint of convenience.

That's an important point, of course. I completely understand that and I would use zooms in those situations, too. My personal situation is just different: I have enough time and most locations I visit are near the place I live and therefore I enjoy the luxury of restricting me to only on or two lenses just because I can do so without loosing anything. Restricting me to such a small set is the way I make my best pictures, but I know very well, that the same cannot work for everybody.
 
For what it's worth I'm in the process of selling my 8 piece Fuji X kit for a Sony RX10 - health issues had a lot to do with that. For me changing lenses in the field was frought and so far the Sony is working for me.
 
I was not only sick of changing lenses, I was sick of larger cameras, too. Since the end of last year, I've been carrying the Ricoh GR and Panasonic LX7 on a daily basis. Most of my shooting needs are met by these two cameras. Over the years I've moved from a compact with a bit of zoom to DSLR's with zooms, then to rangefinders with a few lenses in the bag, then to m43 and a few lenses AND zooms. Now I'm just sick of a heavy bag full of stuff, and I just want a simple and light camera or two.

I really missed the simple days of just one pocket camera that did 'everything'. But the problem is that as your experience with photography and different equipment grows, no single camera does everything. Certainly not in a small package. If I want full frame image quality, shallow depth of field, weatherproofing, and a wide to tele focal length range, I have to use a full frame camera with a relatively fast zoom. The smallest would be a Sony A7 and a 24-70mm f2.8 which does not yet exist for that system.

So I compromise a bit on image quality but pick up a lot in convenience with the GR and LX7. Heck, the 11fps raw burst in the LX7 means I can sort of shoot fast sports action! The LX7 also does excellent small sensor video, and in good light is a reasonable competitor with the GR. The 5D Mark II stays at home and almost never comes out, unless it is to shoot stills for work. The M9 comes out when I want full frame image quality in a fairly small but admittedly still inconvenient package. I've been considering the Sony A7 but the shutter loudness and buying into a whole new lens system bugs me. So the GR and LX7 do about 80-90% of what I want for everyday fun. No lenses to change, only another camera to pick up.
 
So I took a look at the zooms I used last year for work and the % of time each one was used at the ends of their focal lengths...

Nikon 1
10-30mm (~12-40mm M43, 18-55mm APS-C, 24-70mm FF)
10mm: 55%
30mm: 9%

30-110mm (~40-150mm M43, 55-200mm APS-C, 70-300mm FF)
30mm: 12%
110mm: 25%

Panasonic 12-35 M43 (~16-50mm APS-C, 24-70mm FF)
12mm: 27%
35mm: 38%

Pentax 16-50mm APS-C (~24-70mm FF)
16mm: 15%
50mm: 35%

Pentax 50-135mm APS-C (~70-200mm FF)
50mm: 6%
135mm: 27%

Now this is for ~12k work photos, so a lot of it depends on the shooting assignments (a mix of motorcycle travel, event, and product) and the lenses I had with me at the time. I'd imagine that the percentages for my personal photos would be different. But it's pretty clear that the high percentages at particular ends of the FL suggest that there were situations where I'd wish I had even wider or longer.

My most "successful" lenses (both primes and zooms), meaning the ones that produced the most keepers (*** or better in my LR ranking system)? The little Nikons. Go figure.
 
Being the cameraholic that I am I do find it frustrating that I basically have too much stuff. I have more cameras and lens combinations than I have time to use them. If I'm going out for the day or weekend I sit there agonising over which camera / lens combo to take. Life would be so much simpler if I had a 'perfect camera' to just pick up and go but that does not exist. Having Fuji and M4/3 is really daft as I'm covering the same focal lengths with both systems. I am reducing the M4/3 system greatly and am aiming to end up with 1 camera, 1 zoom (12-32) and 1 prime (20mm). The Fuji system gives much better IQ IMO so that will be for when I go out to take 'serious' images. I expect I will just keep the Fuji 23mm on my X-Pro1 most of the time as that combo is killer!

I need to retire so I can get more time to take images! :D
 
Interesting thread - especially since I am in two minds about this issue and find myself oscillating between two quite different behaviours. Usually, I prefer a fixed prime, period - the best example for this is that I own a Nikon V1, but only one lens, the 18.5mm - that's a really enjoyable combo. But I also love my Olympus PM1 with the Panasonic 12-32mm - even though that may not be much of a zoom, the image quality I can get out of this quite modest setup is very, very pleasing indeed. So, even on cameras I could change lenses on, I mostly don't - but on some days, I go out carrying a whole kit (these days, mostly m4/3 - M10 with at least four lenses, sometimes five or six) and change lenses every couple of shots, sometimes even for only one single picture. But I guess I need to be in a special frame of mind to actually do that ...

When it comes to actually using the zoom, at least on the PM1 I do that quite regularily, and across the range. However, I like the 12mm, 17mm and 32(ish)mm setttings best in terms of what I get, so I guess I end up with slightly more 12mm and 17mm than others (btw. the 17mm isn't even marked on the lens - I just found I often choose that focal length). But I find I can live very well with just the 20mm on that camera, too. So, in the end, I'm not much of a zoom guy, and if it wasn't for the 12-32mm, I would hardly ever use one. That said, tele zooms are a different story - they're really useful, but still I can't see myself using one on a m4/3 ...

So, in the end, while I couldn't live without primes, I could probably live without zooms - and will have to change lenses occasionally. I don't mind that, but what I really like is to grab a camera I'm fully aware of and to grab the picture I want with a minimum of fuss and fiddling (note: not with a minimum of dedication, though :)).

M.
 
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