As a working professional, I shoot around 50/50 when it comes to stills and video. Mostly it’s in the commercial photography space, things like portraits, lifestyle, food, documentary, and a lot of stuff that essentially tells a story.
A good portion of this is with prime lenses (fixed focal length that doesn’t zoom), specifically a 35/1.4 for wide stuff and 85/1.8 for tight. I love wide apertures. This is where all the magic is 🙂
I’m about to switch from my trusty Canon 5Dmk4 workhorses over to the new R5 mirrorless camera and RF lens mount. This is a big and expensive change up for me so I decided to look at my current shooting habits regarding lenses and f-stops.
Specifically in regards to the new Canon RF 28-70/f2 lens which really intrigues me. There is not another lens like it and with a wide aperture of f/2, and it might just replace my beloved prime lenses.
When we take a photo with a digital camera, it gets loaded with a ton of information called Metadata. All sorts of stuff about the settings used to create the photo and it’s quite easy to view. So I ran the numbers in Lightroom. Essentially it presents quite the strong case for the 28-70:
Bear with me while I go a bit Rain-man on you. These numbers are based on all the photos I supplied to clients in 2020:
Sigma Art 35/1.4 – 21% of total shots for 2020
12% shot at f1.8 or less (and only 0.01% at f 1.6 and 1.4 combined!)
77% shot at f 2, 2.2 and 2.5 combined
49% shot at f 2.2
Tamron 85/1.8 – 26% of total shots for 2020
12% at 1.8 (as per the 35 above)
78% shot at f 2, 2.2 and 2.5 combined (remarkably similar to the 35)
44% shot at f2
Canon 70-200/2.8 IS – 26% of total shots for 2020
64% shot at f 2.8, 3.2 and 3.5 combined
Canon 16-35/2.8 – 11% of total shots for 2020
19% shot at f 2.8, 3.2 and 3.5 combined (11% at f3.5)
So if that made you go a bit cross-eyed, here’s the takeaway:
Although I love my fast primes, only 12% of what I deliver to clients is shot at less than f2. Nearly 80% of what I do supply is between f2, 2.2 and 2.5, and nearly 50% is just at f2.2. Right in the sweet spot of the RF 28-70. This is remarkably similar for both the 35 and 85. This means that if the RF 28-70 is sharp and usable at f2, I could shoot most of my prime lens work with it with no problem at all.
In addition, I shoot 26% of shots with my 70-200, and 64% of those are less than f4. So the faster lens is really justified here.
My 4th most used lens is the 16-35 at 11% of work. Note here that I only shoot 19% of photos at less than f4. I still think the faster lens is justified but a lot of work with this lens is stopped down for architecture.
So 84% of the work I do is with these 4 lenses. 47% is with the two primes that seemingly could be replaced with the RF28-70/2. This bears out the old 80/20 rule yet again. Remarkable how consistently that shows up everywhere.
So this is a bit of a long and technical post but I found it interesting and thought it would be good to share. I can highly recommend the exercise to other photographers to help understand your shooting habits, which can then really support you when looking into new gear.