Prime Lens..............

CMoore

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.........has that term been around a long time.?
I will be the first to admit i was never a camera expert, nerd, pro, etc etc
We usually said, circa 1977, "lens" if discussing a fixed length..... 85, 35, 50, 105.
We said "zoom" if it was a zoom lens.
I do not remember "prime" being used so much as now. Then again, i did not read very many camera magazines.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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I agree. Prime was a word I heard only until recently, when I asked the clerk if they had any fixed focal length lenses for a particular camera... He said yes, we have a few prime lenses. By that, I thought he meant good quality, top of the line...but he meant "fixed focal length" I turned that into a teachable moment for my photo students the next day... And the next time I'm at the butcher's and he says to me, "ooh we've got some good prime cuts over here", I'll try not to think of fixed focal length lenses
 

Bill Burk

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I’d swear I used it to distinguish them from zoom, in the 80’s back when all I wanted was f/2 lenses or brighter
 

Ian Grant

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It was a term coined 1970-80's, and meant the manufacturer's fixed focal length lenses rather than 3rs party, and their best offering. It was around this time Nikon started selling their budget E series lenses.

It coincides with the Vivitar S1 Series very innovative lenses and then the Tamron SP's., but perhaps more importantly Prime lenses were fixed focal length at a time zooms were the standard lenses on lower end SLRs.

Ian
 

Rob Skeoch

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They were just lenses of different focal lengths. There were no zooms. I worked at newspapers in the 70, 80,90's (wow, I'm old) I don't remember any of us having a zoom lens. The first zoom I saw was a Pentax K-mount 80-200mm f4. Basicly impossible to focus and not sharp anyways. The coolest guy I new was a photographer at one of the papers, not only did he have two new Nikon F2 with drives, he had a 135mm f2. For a long time I thought 'Prime' meant 'higher quality'. Once I started at Sony and they started coming out with fixed focal length lenses, the term prime came out, and means what it currently does.
 

xkaes

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I prefer "fixed focal length" over "prime", but "prime" is definitely shorter.
 

MattKing

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The mathematics student in me cringes whenever I hear the term. I'm always tempted to retort back - "as in Fibonacci prime?"
I worked selling cameras up until the early 1980s, and I don't ever recall that usage back then. I would guess it was in the early 2000s that I first became aware of it.
Of all the slang terms in photography, it seems one of the least helpful.
 

Bronson Dugnutt

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A fixed focal length lens can also be telephoto, not to be confused with a true parfocal variable focal length optic.
 

Mick Fagan

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MattKing said:
Of all the slang terms in photography, it seems one of the least helpful.
Click to expand...

The current slang term that really throws me, is the usage of "MF" to mean Manual Focus, I have always used the abbreviation MF to define, Medium Format.

Manual focus is a given, and, if it is an autofocus camera, the abbreviation almost universally used, is, AF.
 

markjwyatt

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All this depends on which side of the electronic curtain (in tine) your photographic experience was established.
 

ic-racer

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Whoever heard of "analog" photography before 1990....
 

eli griggs

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I've always know lenses as prime (fixed) and zoom.

I started photography in the early - mid 1970's and like many newbies, read every article and advertisment for cameras, lenses and equipment, from wires to stands to lens shades, that I could get my hands on, and I've never seen a sudden line of departure from some other term to "prime"; it's just that simple and I feel the term was continuously reenforced by makers and vendors of cameras with what we always also called, "kit" lenses, meaning the prime lenses that came as part of the camera package.

If the phrase,"prime" or "zoom" bother you, the fix is simple, refer to ALL lenses as "Optics" and leave a little mystery in your conversation, however, I foresee a bit of difficulty there as most photographers will press you to clarify, is it a prime or zoom you are referring to, even, perhaps pinholes. ;-)
 

Pieter12

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None of this is slang. Some lenses have and AF/MF switch on them. It’s pretty much accepted terminology.
 

MattKing

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"Film photography" became useful when videotape came in - the 1950s I believe.
 

RalphLambrecht

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CMoore said:
............ or "film photography" for that matter.
I suppose some things change over time
Click to expand...

... or wet and dry photography; some things just have several different terms depending n what You're used to or where you're coming from. As long as we know what is meant... all fine to me.
 

markjwyatt

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MattKing said:
"Film photography" became useful when videotape came in - the 1950s I believe.
Click to expand...

I never called videography "photography". I would say "video taping" or something to that effect.
 

Philippe-Georges

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You are absolutely right, the trouble is how to solve this?
An internet search, a conversation with an young aspiring photographer, sales announcements, the designation 'MF' is confusing.
Only a few old beggars like us...
 

Philippe-Georges

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The French have a nice designation for analogue photography, they call it "(Photographie-) Argentique" from the word Argentum and refers to the chemical film emulsion procése's component silver...
 
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