Would a fixed or zoom telephoto lens be better for learning?

Question

My daughter has a Nikon D-90 camera body and two prime f1.4 lenses 50mm and 35mm. She is interested in learning more, and I am curious which of a zoom or fixed telephoto lens would help her best? Is getting a low f-stop lens important in a telephoto lens?

Answer

It depends on where she's feeling the limitations. I have a kit made up of 15mm, 40mm, and 70mm prime lenses (on a dSLR with the same 1.5× format as the Nikon D90), and for me, that's just about right. (I'd probably trade the 40mm for a 35mm were I starting over — tough call.) For my style, I don't miss having a zoom at all.

Since she has (and is presumably comfortable with) two prime lenses, she may feel the same way, and would just like to increase the range of focal lengths she has available. For that, another prime covering either wider-angle or more telephoto would fit nicely.

On the other hand, she might want to explore the convenience of a zoom. Having flexibility of framing can remove one-more-thing-to-worry-about from the learning process, and remove the potential need to switch lenses in the middle of the action.

Back on the first hand, though, there is a school of thought which argues that prime lenses have inherent advantages for learning composition. Mike Johnston's Case Against Zooms articulates this view well. The idea is that by learning to know a particular prime lens's inherent viewpoint, that limitation actually becomes a freedom.

Since I use my 40mm most often, I can attest to this: having used it to take thousands of photographs over the course of several years, I can know what photo my camera will make without having to actually put it to my eye. That's very useful, and helps me concentrate on taking the photographs I want to take with the view I want to have.

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