If you could own only one Prime lens what size would it be ?

[Steve5D]

Canon 85mm f/1.8...

 

[invisible]

I'm mostly a zoom person that uses primes every once in a while. If I were forced to choose just one prime, I'd resort to Exposure Plot (a nifty little shareware) to learn what focal lengths I use the most. Here's a screenshot of a quick scan of some of my files:

In my case, that one prime lens would have to be a 28mm or a 14mm.

 

[Flyhigh]

I love my nifty-50, but it is not always ideal. I would love to have a 24 - 70 f2.8L, but way out of my budget right now. While not a prime, it's what I wish I had.

 

[TCampbell]

If I could just have ANY lens, then of course it'd have to be the EF 1200mm f/5.6L USM. A while back, a "used" lens sold for about $120,000 at B&H Photo's used department.

This way, I could sell the lens, buy every other lens and piece of camera gear I could ever want, pay of the mortgage on the house, and get a new set of tires for the car and STILL have money to go on a nice vacation.

;-)

 

[Ysarex]

An old peasant one day found a discarded cello amidst the city trash and he took it home. It only had one string. He cleaned it up and fashioned a bow and in the evening he would play just one note on that one string sitting for hours in front of the fire.

A long time passed and one day his wife went to the city and ran across a group of street musicians. One played a cello with four strings and she played many different notes using all the strings. That evening the wife excitedly told the old man what she had seen. He sat and thought about this for some time and then continued to play the same note with his single string cello. Then he turned to his wife and said, "they must have still been trying to find the right note."

Many years ago I had a Nikon 35mm f/1.4 on an old F body. I used to go out with just that lenses on many an occasion. I was pretty convinced I'd found the right note.

Joe

 

[coastalconn]

I'm with Runnah and Scraig on this one 600 F4 although I would settle for a 500 F4 if someone donated it to me

 

[gsgary]

300mmf2.8L on my digital and 28mm on my M4 got both

 

[thetrue]

I don't think it exists, but I would LOVE a 16mm f/1.4L or something similar.

 

[Solarflare]

Something between 28mm and 60mm (equivalent to full frame, of course).

For a Nikon D7000, which is APS-C, that would be 18-40mm. Your main choices are AFAIK:
- Nikkor AF-S DX 35mm f1.8G - Very sharp, somewhat high CA problems except wide open (*)
- Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM - Great bokeh, not as sharp as the 35mm f1.8
- Nikkor AF-S micro DX 40mm f2.8G - A tiny bit even sharper than the 35mm, but really not that much. Less CAs, though. As a macro lens, this allows to go very close. On the other hand, its not that bright.

(*) Can be fixed; the camera does this automatically as well as many RAW software including the original Nikon one included with the camera (you can also export to TIFF 16 Bit from that so you can postprocess to your hearts desire with other programs without loss of quality).

 

[bratkinson]

My favorite prime in the film days was the FD 135 f2.0. 30 years later, it's the EF 135 f2.0L. The FD and now the EF STILL knocks my socks off when I look at the results!

 

[gw2424]

Canon 50mm f/1.0 for me.

BOKEH!

 

[digital flower]

60mm/2.8 nikkor for me

 

[o hey tyler]

I would say the 35/1.4L on a full frame body.

 

[goodguy]

An old peasant one day found a discarded cello amidst the city trash and he took it home. It only had one string. He cleaned it up and fashioned a bow and in the evening he would play just one note on that one string sitting for hours in front of the fire.

A long time passed and one day his wife went to the city and ran across a group of street musicians. One played a cello with four strings and she played many different notes using all the strings. That evening the wife excitedly told the old man what she had seen. He sat and thought about this for some time and then continued to play the same note with his single string cello. Then he turned to his wife and said, "they must have still been trying to find the right note."

Many years ago I had a Nikon 35mm f/1.4 on an old F body. I used to go out with just that lenses on many an occasion. I was pretty convinced I'd found the right note.

Joe

What an amazing story Joe, thank you for shring this with us.

 

[Robin_Usagani]

35L full frame... but if I can only have 1 prime, probably that's the time to find another hobby.