How to Take Better Photos – Prime Lens or Zoom?

Which is better? The answer is… It depends

What does it depend on? Read on to find out…

Professionally I shoot portraits predominantly in clients own homes. I shoot with a Panasonic G9 micro 4/3 and I have both prime & zoom lenses in my kit. So which do I use when?

For family shoots, children etc I use a 12-60mm (24-120mm FF eq) I need the flexibility that a zoom provides and generally I’m wanting a good depth of field to get all the family in focus.

However when I’m shooting new-born’s or boudoir, I use fast primes 25mm or 45mm (50mm or 90mm FF eq) because I want the out of focus softness that you get when shooting at f1.4/f2

For fun, I shoot all sorts – landscapes, macro, street & wildlife. Recently I’ve been looking for a wildlife lens longer than my 50-200mm (100-400mm eq)

I had the chance to compare the Olympus 300mm (600mm FF eq) f4 Pro +/- 1.4 TC versus Olympus 100-400mm (200-800 FF eq) f5-6.3 and some of images I captured are below. Clicking on the images will open them full size with the lens & exif data along the bottom.

So what do I think?

Well first off, they are both great lenses with excellent sharpness wide open.

The 300mm f4 is maybe a tab sharper, a tab more contrasty & a bit more consistent in its focusing as you’d expect. but is that enough to warrant double the price tag? I think that depends on your own personal priorities.

But the big differentiator is the f4 maximum aperture vs the f6.3 @ 300mm of the zoom which is about 1⅓ stops more light. To put this into context – if you are using 1/1000s at f4 with ISO 1000, this equates to 1/1000 at f6.2 with ISO 2500!

On the other hand the 100-400mm obviously offers more flexibility and it is easier to acquire your subject relatively zoomed out & then zoom in.

For me, the faster maximum aperture and the ability to keep my ISO down make the 300mm f4 the winner but your mileage may vary.