A camera loses its appeal if not powered by a solid lens. The circular piece of carefully crafted glass that sits pretty at the front of a beautiful camera body not only adds to its potential but also its beauty. And the humongous variety of lenses available for each camera adds to the mystery behind them with photographers often stuck between choices among lenses. Apart from the aperture, focal length and other basic attributes of lenses, there is a distinct level of categorization for them. They are often segregated into the prime lens and zoom lens categories.

In this guide we will be describing both these types of lenses, their advantages and hopefully help pick the right one for you. So shall we begin?

Prime Lenses and their Advantages

A Prime lens is one that you cannot zoom, that is, it is a lens with a fixed focal length. Prime Lenses tend to be a lens designer’s delight because he has only one focal length to focus on. This results in a finer detail and quality of the lens and lends the lenses quite a few advantages as mentioned below:

1. Image Quality

If you’re entrusted with just one task, you make sure you do your best to achieve a supreme result. Prime lenses are a clear winner over zoom lenses when it comes to image quality. And the reason behind this is the fact that they are specially designed to shoot at only one focal length; so they’ll obviously be good at it! They deliver crisp, clear images especially with wide aperture that cannot be beaten by a zoom lens.

2. Compactness

Generally, Prime lenses are more compact than zoom lenses. They are lightweight and smaller in size. So if you have to carry your equipment around and you don’t have many zooming needs, a prime lens would be best suited for you. A quick piece of info – larger aperture makes for a heavier lens, so if you like to travel light, go for smaller aperture lenses. You could actually carry multiple small aperture prime lenses and still fell lighter as compared to carrying a single good quality wide aperture zoom lens.

3. Faster Aperture

You’ll find a wider aperture on Prime lenses as compared to zoom lenses. This makes for great photos while shooting in dim light. Also, if you really know how to use the focal length of the camera precisely, the aperture of the Prime lens offers quite low depth of field thus isolating objects in the background.

4. Price

With a few exceptions, Prime lenses tend to be more reasonable than zoom lenses.

Zoom Lenses and their Advantages

The Zoom lens is the Prime lens’s more flamboyant twin! It has many focal lengths packed in a single lens and allows the user to easily switch between them. If you love shooting at various focal lengths and do not want to go through the headache of carrying different lenses with different focal lengths, a zoom lens is what will liberate you of your woes. Here is a sneak peek at the zoom lens’s advantages:

1. Multiple Focal Lengths

Just pack a premium zoom lens and you’re set to shoot the farthest of points to the most intricate details. When it comes to flexibility and versatility, a prime lens cannot match the zoom lens at all. It’s a one-stop solution for shooting at multiple focal lengths. A zoom lens is the ideal choice for nature photographers who need to zoom in on their subjects from a distance. Plus, zoom lenses can capture moving objects much better then prime lenses.

2. Ease of use

One zoom lens eliminates the need of a bag full of prime lenses. Just mount it and off you go! Plus, you don’t need to change the lens every now and then. So its basically just smart to use a zoom lens instead of a prime lens if you don’t need the kind of detail at a particular focal length that prime lens offers.

3. Cost effectiveness

Yes prime lenses are in general lower priced then Zoom lenses, but if you need 4 or 5 focal lengths, going for a single zoom lens would be ideal than going for 4 or 5 prime lenses. A single prime lens can never be enough, however, a single Zoom lens could be all that you need.

Summing it Up – Prime Lens VS Zoom Lens: The Verdict!

Now that you know the key points and advantages of both lenses, it really is a matter of priorities. If you mostly shoot within a studio at a fixed focal length and don’t mind changing your lens every now and then, you might want to go with Prime lenses. However, nature and wildlife photographers would definitely pick Zoom lenses. Ideally, you should have an open mind for both and choose according to the situation and need.