So, How Is My Experiment Using Only Prime Lenses Going?

Portrait of a former family farm home. Sad. I wonder what stories could be told? (click to enlarge)
Nikon Zf; Yongnuo 85mm f/1.8 lens; 1/200th sec. @ f/11; ISO 125

In short, not as well as I had hoped.

In mid-December, I decided to conduct an experiment.  I needed something to get my creative juices flowing and thought using different gear would be a challenge.  It would give me a reason to go out and photograph.  (I know what you are thinking--any excuse to buy some new gear.  No, not in this case anyway.  Really.  ...as though I need an excuse!  :-)  So, I set about to try to go a bit old school in carrying a camera and a few prime lenses instead of my normal kit which is almost all zoom lenses.  You can read the post about my experiment and gear I decided to use here.  

Now that I've primarily used prime lenses for about 10 weeks, it is not working out as I had hoped.  I've found it really isn't pleasurable for me.  Primes are nice but inconvenient.  I find the inconvenience of having to often change lenses less pleasurable than using a high quality zoom lens.  When I spotted a subject I wanted to photograph it seemed I always had the wrong lens on the camera.  Also, as I moved around to vary the composition, I found I had to change lenses even more times.  Again, it comes to convenience more than size, weight and bulk.  Speaking of size, weight and bulk, one high quality zoom covering 24-120mm is smaller and lighter than 3 to 4 primes covering 20mm to 85mm.  So there's that.

(Just for the record, I always move around to get the right composition with a zoom lens as much as I would with primes.  It is all about foreground, mid-ground and background relationships to each other.  Standing in one place and zooming can’t get the relationships right.  All zooming does is crop when not changing physical positions.)

Additionally, by having to change lenses so often, sensor dust has become an issue.  Even using my best, tried and true, technique of avoiding dust when changing the lenses, I’m finding dust spots in my images much more frequently.  (In my experience, Nikon is notorious for dust settling on their sensors.  With my OM and Fujifilm gear, very seldom if ever do I see dust in my images.)  That, in and of itself, to me is reason enough to utilize a system that does not require me to change lenses very often or use a camera, such as the Nikon Z8, that has a sensor dust shield.  Dust spotting many, many image files is tedious and a waste of time if you can avoid it.

(click to enlarge)

Could I make an all prime lens kit work?  Sure.  I can make just about anything work.  But why would I make things more difficult for myself than necessary?  Do I need to suffer for my art?  No.  Suffering and making things difficult doesn't produce better images in my opinion.  Removing obstacles allows me to concentrate on my subject, composition, etc.

So, I’ve largely abandoned my experiment much more quickly than I had thought.  That said, I’m not really surprised.  I’ve purchased primes, usually fast semi-wide angle primes, over the past years but I have found the use of them limited.  That is, of course, for the kinds of photography I practice.  Your mileage may vary, as the saying goes.

I’m not going to sell the primes I have.  All are very good lenses.  I will use them at times but not ‘primarily’ as my experiment would have me doing.  That rather smallish kit consisting of the Nikon Zf, the Viltrox 20mm f/2.8, Nikon 28mm f/2.8 Nikon 40mm f/2 and Yongnuo 85mm f/1.8 is a terrific kit.  I can recommend this combination for those who want to photograph with only prime lenses but not invest a lot of money doing so.  I carry the camera and lenses in a Peak Design Sling Bag, which works well for me.  What I may do, however, is throw the Nikon 24-200mm lens into the bag as well, as it is relatively small also, and continue to occasionally carry this kit.  That will increase the kit's versatility.  I'm curious if the addition of that lens to my bag will make a difference to me.  I find the use and image quality from the Zf very satisfying so I plan to continue to use it.  We'll see.

One additional afterthought.  I think, for me, that I would prefer using a zoom lens kit or a camera with a one single focal length lens with no additional lenses. With either of those kits, photographic decisions become much easier. With easier and fewer decisions comes more pleasure.

Oh!  Another thing I think I discovered.  Using different gear didn’t really jumpstart my winter creative slump.  It was actually getting out and photographing more often that chased away those winter creative blahs.  Creativity begets creativity.  The more you participate in creative activities, the more creative and enthusiastic you will be about your photography.  Sit around and do nothing and your mojo will slowly fade.  My recommendation is to get up, grab a camera and just go out and look for interesting subject matter.  I think it will be of help when fighting the winter blahs.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

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