which zoom lens would you use?

Is there a general rule for which zoom lens you would use when there's
an overlap?

For example, let's say you have a 20-35mm zoom, and a 28-105mm zoom,
and the picture you want happens to fall at 32mm. Assuming that both
lenses are basically of equal glass quality, would you prefer the long
end of the 20-35, or the short end of the 29-105?

 

Whichever one was on my camera at the time. The time spent in changing
lenses means that a shot might be lost, far overriding the minimal
difference in image quality to be obtained by switching.

 

A Zeiss 35mm 1.4

 

It depends.

 

What Skip said.

Having said what he said, I'd then prefer the one that had the least
distortion and then whichever was sharpest at that FL.

OTOH, if there were other likely sujects or shot opportunities around
the area of interest, my preference would be the longer zoom for subject
isolation.

Other's are "wide angle" oriented and would likely prefer that lens.

Cheers,
Alan.

 

Generally, zooms with a smaller zoom ration are sharper. As such, the 20-35
would most likely provide a technically better result.

 

Like someone else said if there was a possibility of missing the shot,
use the one that's on the camera body...but if there's time to change,
consider what your next few shots will be...will they be other wide
angle shots? If so use the 20-35, if they'll be normal to telephoto,
use the 28-105. If you're not sure, and there's not a HUGE difference
in the widest aperture of the two zooms, leave the 28-105 on the body
and you'll be covered for most situations. If the 20-35 is much
faster than the 28-105, then it'll have to be a spot judgement call.
Personally I've always preferred primes and only own one zoom out of 7
lenses and it's a 70-210, so I rarely have any overlap as most of mine
are in the wide to normal focal length range.

 

daft question really
depends what you like to shoot generally before or after
if that was the only shot your going to do then best option is a fixed 35mm
or 28mm

 

It seems to vary for each lens, sharpness, barrel/pincushion, etc. and
it varies by aperture too. Lens reviews will often state what the
compromises are throughout the range of a zoom. If you shoot Nikon, Ken
Rockwell is pretty methodical and succinct about this (hold back your
jeers, ken-haters <g>).

So you'll just have to learn the specifics of your lenses.

 

$$> For example, let's say you have a 20-35mm zoom, and a 28-105mm zoom,
$> and the picture you want happens to fall at 32mm. Assuming that both
$> lenses are basically of equal glass quality, would you prefer the long
$> end of the 20-35, or the short end of the 29-105?
$
$Whichever one was on my camera at the time.

Yup, what he said.

The only reason I'd switch to the other lens would be if it offered
me something useful which made it worthwhile switching. For instance,
if I have the 17-40/4L on my camera, and the 28-135/3.5-5.6 IS USM in
my bag, I might switch to the 28-135 if IS would be beneficial. If I
had the 28-135 mounted and the 17-40 in my bag and I was shooting a
subject where curvilinear distortion would be troublesome, I might
switch to the 17-40, as its long end has much less distortion than the
wide end of the 28-135.

There could be other reasons, even assuming equal glass quality,
such as that one lens is significantly faster than the other in
their overlapping focal length range (not an issue in the case of the
two specific lenses I mention, as they're within half a stop of each
other in the overlapping range).[/QUOTE]

 

Mostly, the one that's already on the camera .

As a very rough principle, both extremes on a zoom are likely to be
less good than the more moderate settings; but the extreme on one zoom
can very easily be better than the middle of *another* zoom, lenses
vary so much. I think general principles are swamped by individual
variation in this case, and you have to have experience with the two
particular lenses you're deciding between to make the proper choice.

 

Whichever one was on the camera at the time from the last shot. So in
general for me that would more likely be the 17-35 than the 28-105