Thanks all for the input!

I used to be a Prime Only shooter, because when I started out using some serious cameras in the 70's about the only zoom made with a reputation for acceptable image quality was Nikon's 80-200 f4.5. Having experimented with a 35-105 Tamron and a 35-105 Nikkor AF in the 80's I found both lenses lacking in sharpness. What changed my mind was the 18-85mm kit lens that was part of the package when the D70 first hit the market. On that D70 it was a very good performer. Later on when I got a D300 I found it even more impressive than on the D70 cue to the higher reolution of the D300. I also did some comparisons and that 18-85 was sharper than my 28mm f2.8 AF Nikkor, my 50mm f1.4 AF Nikkor, and a match for my 85mm f1.8 Nikkor. Downside is it didn't have VR and after learning the value of VR with a 70-300mm VR Nikkor I picked up the 18-105mm VR Nikkor. That 18-105 was the equal of the 18-85 when mounted on a tripod and hand held put the 18-85 to shame in reduced lighting. Hey, I'm in my 60's now so a bit of shake is sadly normal.

More recently I stepped up to Full Frame with the D750 when they had a "Kit Package" deal that included the 25-120 VR Nikkor and this lense is rather stunning. I actually snapped a pic of a cousin water skiing past the boathouse I was standing with her about 120 yards off shore. When I got home after my vacation I decided to do some cropping of that snap and and cropping down to about 1/4 to 1/3 of the full frame produced an image that was quite acceptable. Basically that 120mm focal length stood up to a 3X or bit more of "digital zoom" while producing image quality suitable for a good looking 8x10.

Sum it up and many of today's zooms are capable of image quality that matches or even exceeds many Primes some consider "the best". The only thing these zooms cannot match is the limited depth of focus that can be produced by lenses such as the 50mm f1.2 or 1.4. However having spent a lot of time reading Ansel Adams many books and under a cloth using a 4x5 monorail I'm not really a fan of wide aperture imagery.

quote:

Originally posted by Deqlyn:
For video mostly. Probably not a lot of change of distances except when recording while traveling.

As I understand it they are fairly close to being the same with the added convenience of not having to change. Thoughts?

If Canon, get the 24-105 f/4 USM as previously mentioned, and keep it at f/4.0 when you can.
This is my go-to setup with my C100, and it is wonderful.

quote:

Originally posted by GaryBF:
Carrying multiple lenses and changing them in the field becomes a real pain in the ass, not to mention the possiblity of introducing dirt on the sensor. Go with a sensible range zoom and don't look back.

I agree. And GaryBF makes excellent photos.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
If it is primarily for video, why not buy a video camera? Video is an afterthought on DSLRs. It is getting to be a pretty good afterthought, but a dedicated video camera will be better.

DSLRs and Mirrorless have already long reached the point where they surpass consumer handheld camcorders.

The Canon T7i puts out 60Mbps video bitrate versus the 35Mbps usually found in consumer handheld camcorders. Higher video bitrate = cleaner images. For a while, this was the bottleneck as it took alot of CPU power to downsample a 12mp image into a 2.1mp video without overheating, and the compromise was to simply lower the amount of data that actually needed to get downsampled.

The other bottleneck was auto focus. Many photo lenses just couldn't focus fast enough or did so with too much noise. It was just easier to make tiny little lenses focus quickly, and you only needed tiny little lenses on a camcorder because the sensor size is miniscule, like 1/2.8". But lens technology is catching up--you've got silent magnetic focusing motors on lenses now, and lenses are being sized down specifically for APS-C and MFT sensors to reduce the amount of mass that needs to move in order focus.

Essentially, I can't really see what a consumer handheld camcorder brings to the table that an iPhone doesn't. Perhaps there's greater dynamic range because they only need to squeeze like 3mp onto a 1/2.8" sensor so each pixel might be bigger, or a zoom motor for smooth zoom...but that's about all I can come up with from the top of my head.

I didn't know that. My information about video cameras was out of date.