Zoom Lens vs. Prime Lens
The Big Choice when buying lenses: A Prime Lens or a Zoom Lens? Let’s first discuss what a Prime Lens or a Zoom Lens is. A Zoom lens is… well. Like the name of it suggests. It’s a lens that you can zoom in or out, letting you cover a range of focal lengths. This basically allows you to include more or less of a scene, without moving or doing anything really. All you need to do is twist the zoom ring. On the other hand, a prime lens covers only one specific focal length, meaning there is no zoom ring. You will have to move physically to “zoom in” or “zoom out”. They both have their good points which I’ll talk about next.
Prime Lens
As said before, prime lens have a set focal length. You need to move to get closer or farther from your subject so it requires you to move more. But because it is a set focal length, prime lenses are smaller and lighter. This means less weight to carry. When moving around from location to location or when going for a long photo walk, trust me when I say this, every gram counts. Every. gram. counts. Lenses being smaller and lighter also mean they typically attract less attention. Walking around in public, I’d definitely be able to spot a photographer with a big zoom lens first than someone walking around with a small prime. They also are typically faster in terms of aperture. For example, a 35 mm prime lens can come in f1.4, f1.8, f2.8. Whereas a zoom lens, the fastest one available I've seen would be f2.8.
Zoom Lens
With Zoom lens, there’s really only one word needed to describe it: VERSATILITY. Zoom lens allow you to effectively having many prime lenses in one. As mentioned before, you can zoom in or out via a zoom ring, changing focal lengths anytime you might need to. One second you could be at 70 mm and the next, you could be at 35 mm, all without needing to switch lenses, which trust me, gets annoying real fast. There are also situations when I wouldn't want to even try to change lenses like the beach or in the rain (though I have tried and can confirm, zoom lens would be easier). Speaking of focal lengths, there are common focal lengths such as the 24 mm, 35 mm, 50 mm, 85 mm and so on. But with zoom lens, you can set your focal length to any mm between those for any situation you find yourself in such as 43 mm or something. You can effectively cover any situation that might come to you with one lens.
Personal Experience
For me, I use both for specific situations. If I'm in a new city, I would definitely opt for a zoom lens. Give me a 16-35 zoom and a 24-70 zoom and that would honestly cover 99% of my needs. Hell, even the 24-70 would cover probably 95% of my needs as the 16-35 would only be needed for the wide end. This lets me worry about capturing what I want without worrying about what to bring for the day or changing lenses during my walk. I just grab my camera and start the day. When I went to Seoul for the first time, I was going around town and I can't even count the amount of times I swapped lenses. At a certain point, I just left my 16-35 on my camera and probably missed a couple shots just because I didn't want to change lenses again for the 1,000,000th time. For these type situations, a 24-70 would be my best friend.
If I'm doing night photography and need the high f stop or don't want to carry around a big lens, I'll opt for 2 primes or so in my bag. I try to limit myself to 2 primes or else, I'd be swapping lenses like crazy and in that case, I might as well just bring a zoom lens with me. With primes, I find it simplifies my photography process as well. I just focus on the lens I have on my camera. Even if I want to zoom, I can't. I have to move in order to get what I want. This also helps me "see" and get used to the view of a specific focal length. At a certain point you shoot with a specific lens for a long time like I have with the 55 mm Sony, you start getting using to the focal length and how the compression is, how tight or wide the focal length is, and so on.
So which lens?
We've seen the pros for both zoom lenses and primes lenses. So which one should you pick? Well, it depends honestly. If you have no idea what you want and you value versatility over everything else and don't mind having a bigger set up, I'd say pick up a zoom lens. If you want to carry as little as possible and just want to walk around taking photos as simply as possible, I'd recommend a 35mm or 50 mm prime lens. Either route you start with, you'll probably end up owning a combination of both primes and zooms as there are very good reasons to own them.
Like our camera, lenses are also tools that let us capture what we see and want into a photo. For me, there is no “better” or “worse” when it comes to prime vs. zoom. It’s just a matter of “function” and which lenses fit in a certain situation. Sometimes, that may be a prime and other times, it will be a zoom lens.