When You Really Needed a Zoom F
ixed focal length lenses are known to be the sharpest lenses you can buy. An 85mm f/2.8, for example, is sharper than a 24-105mm lens set to 85mm. Similarly, a 500mm telephoto will be sharper than a 150-600mm or a 100-500mm lens at the same 500mm setting. Having said that, there are important factors to think about when choosing a lens. First, the convenience of a zoom lens can’t be beat. I photographed the male lion at sunset, below, with a Canon fixed 500mm telephoto. My safari vehicle was too close to the lion to include the entire animal in the frame. I didn’t like cutting
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off the hind end and the tail, but there was no choice with this particular lens. I would have preferred to be shooting with a zoom, and in particular the new Canon 100-500mm lens, so I could optically pull back and include most of the tail. No doubt if my driver had repositioned the Land Rover, the lion would have moved somehow and this shot probbly would have been lost. High quality zooms today are superb. They are very sharp. The difference in sharpness between a fixed focal length lens and a zoom with an equivalent focal length is not enough to be considered significant in my opinion. This is
