Originally posted by jatrax I think it has much less to do with the body in use than it does the experience and habits of the photographer. I started shooting film after zooms were common and never used, or even knew a prime existed, until a few years ago. Those that started with a 50mm prime on film are far more likely to understand the advantages and the prime lens paradigm.
I prefer zooms, that is what I started with and feel most comfortable with. So my primary lens will always be a zoom with a few primes for special circumstances. Others that started with primes may feel more comfortable with primes. The question is how many people that are zoom users can be convinced that buying a prime lens is worth the expense? Especially when even the most ardent prime supporters generally admit that an image from a top shelf zoom is indistinguishable from one shot with a comparable prime?
I use primes to fill in the places there is no comparable zoom. 50mm f/1.4? prime. 20mm f/2.8? prime. 100mm macro? prime. 135mm f/2.8? prime. 300mm f/4? prime. Hmm maybe I have more primes than I thought......................
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I was going to say, it isn't that difficult to imagine people making that shift. Like you, most of my dSLR experience was around zoom lenses. I did shoot some film with only 2 primes, but I was a teen and the novelty of digital and the ability to have a zoom lens was so appealing; I was naive when shooting film and unaware of zoom lenses (or much of anything at that age).
As I gained experience with my dSLR and my needs, speed became important, and I slowly bought a few primes here and there to fill out a lineup of f2 or faster lenses. There was also an appeal that the 5 primes I had were as a package as small as my top zoom lenses, so I shifted to all primes.
That may not be common, but I know I'm not the only one that has gone that type of route. Pentax has not developed many primes over the past 5 years, so I can see there being a bit more demand for them if they're hitting spots where there is need. The FA limiteds suggest that Pentax can make a DFA prime that is not necessarily too big for those of us in the APS-C world, which has the benefit of selling to more than just the K-1 people.
I, as still a K-3 person, will be interested in what Pentax might release in a faster 20-24 mm as I could use that FOV for APS-C.
The bigger issue, however, could be that I could easily buy the older FA 24 f/2 or Sigma 24/1.8, which wouldn't help Pentax at all but is a reality when you try to manufacture something new. The margin in improvement with new prime lenses doesn't always come across significant enough for the average hobbyist who may be willing to pick up the older generation of lenses for a fraction of the price yet 95% of the quality.
---------- Post added 12-27-2016 at 08:58 AM ----------
Originally posted by shardulm Have you seen the DA* 50-135?
Size is all relative, right? A zoom is almost always going to be bigger than a prime or two in the same focal range. Granted there will be some exceptions, but the exceptions are all going to be slow zoom lenses with variable aperture. With regard to the 50-135, I'm more than happy shooting with my 50/1.7 and 77/1.8 than carrying around the 50-135. But, it really is just a matter of preference.
I once spent a 5 mile hike shooting wildlife with a DA*60-250. It doesn't seem like a huge lens compared to some of the 70-200's out there, but I was still tired of having it on me by the end of the day. But I do recall at the time I bought it that I wasn't going to get a whole lot of weight benefit out of having a 200 or 300 mm lens. I also tend to stick with zooms are focal lengths I rarely shoot at. I generally shoot less than 100 mm, and have primes to cover my needs in that area.