From the course: Exploring Photography: Finding the Perfect Portrait Lens
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What's better: Prime or zoom?
From the course: Exploring Photography: Finding the Perfect Portrait Lens
What's better: Prime or zoom?
All right, we're here we have the great divide. I've organized these lenses on this desk into two different groups. On one side of the desk we have lenses which are referred to as zoom. On the other side we have lenses which are referred to as prime. So what does this mean and why does this matter and how does this relate to finding the perfect portrait lens. Well for starters, prime lenses have what's called a fixed focal length, this is a 50, this is a 135. In contrast, zoom lenses, say like this one here, covers a range, it goes from 24 to 70. So with one lens, we can shoot wide, normal or telephoto. So these lenses offer us a really unique convenience. On the other side of the equation, prime lenses allow us to let in a lot of light. We can open up that iris and shoot with a really shallow depth of field and in portraiture, that can be important because it can add that extra bit of magic to our frames. So, for example, with this 50 millimeter lens. This allows us to shoot at F1.2,…
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