Q&A: Primes or zooms

Q: "I'm starting out in wedding photography and I'm wondering whether I should use prime lenses or zooms?"

OK, first off the question is a bit worrying in relation to going into wedding photography. Shooting weddings is a big deal and I'm bothered that this might be the question at the top of your mind when there are so many others you need to ask yourself (and others) first. I'll ignore that and answer the question though.

For me, I prefer zooms.

1) They give me more opportunities and faster choices of crop

2) Wedding situations can change in a flash from a close-up to a wide-angle shot

3) I only have to carry one lens (actually I do carry two: 24-105 is used throughout the day, but I also have a 100-200 for tight close ups at special moments).

4) Sometimes your venue space is really tight and you need a wide angle to get enough in, but you also want the 100mm for the portraits - now you can keep swapping lenses, but then you risk losing the moment.

However, primes do offer a couple of advantages

1) They typically shoot wider aperture - most zooms won't do better than f4, primes you can get down to f1.2 for that shallow depth of field

2) They are cheaper than zooms by a good margin.

Sharpness:

In days of old zooms were not as sharp as primes, but the optical quality of zooms these days is very good and not something that would give me any concern at all.

50mm lens

Just remember - despite what you may know from "common wisdom" - a 50mm lens is NOT a portrait lens!!!