- Hey everybody.

I'm here in downtown Toronto,

Toronto visiting downtown.

I don't come here too often,

I should probably come here more often

since I live so close.

Anyways, today we're gonna talk

about prime lenses versus zooms.

Which are better?

When should you use what and what are the pros and cons?

Now this is gonna be a two part series,

cause there's a lot to talk about here.

So this one will be focused specifically on primes.

And the reason why I'm downtown is cause

of that guy right there.

He's a bit of a Californian tourist and

it's a little bit embarrassing,

but you know,

friends, right?

(upbeat music)

- It's so beautiful here.

- [Matti] Dude.

- Beautiful.

- You do realize this is Canada, right?

- Oh yeah, but, I mean, I guess it's a little bit chilly.

This is, I'm comfortable.

- They think he's frozen.

- I'm very comfortable. - Are you frozen?

- No, this is great.

I mean, I've been to San Francisco before

and I guess this is a little bit colder,

but I feel fantastic.

Where are we going?

- I don't know how to say this man,

but it's a little bit embarrassing.

- What are you talking about?

I'm just representing California here in Toronto, woo!

- Alright, jokes aside, jokes aside,

he just wanted to show off his legs here in Canada.

If you guys don't know, this is Gene--

- Make sure you're getting my thighs.

- Zoom in.

- Are you getting my thighs?

- Oh yeah.

His channel's called Potato Jet

and if you're not subscribed to him

you should definitely go subscribe right now.

Right, how does it go?

Just like and unsubscribe, was that your thing or?

- Yeah, don't do that, please subscribe and stuff

if you want to see more of these thighs.

- A general rule of thumb is

a good day has helicopters in it.

That's just a general rule.

Dude, who are you, what do you do,

how do you have your own helicopter?

- Chris Nicholas, I'm one half

of the channel Becki and Chris,

Matti's gonna link it up here.

- [Matti] Of course.

- What do I do?

I'm an intervention radiologist,

but I'm also a helicopter pilot.

I have my commercial helicopter license

and I was coming around so,

I was coming around the city so I asked Matti,

I was like, hey, you want to go for a little,

fun little ride?

And he said yes.

- Why do I keep getting myself into these situations

where I'm like, ah, should I be scared or?

- Bro, on a scale of one to swimming with sharks,

this is probably about a nine on the dangerous scale.

(laughing)

- Dang it.

Oh my gosh, you have a Onewheel inside your helicopter.

- This is the ultimate adventure machine, I'm telling you.

You just set it down somewhere

and go explore on the Onewheel.

You got air and ground covered.

You don't need anything else.

I'm gonna be the first person in the history of mankind

to ride a Onewheel at Billy Bishop Airport

on Toronto Island.

(epic music)

(laughing)

- Anticlimactic.

That was the best ever.

(laughing)

- Correction, the first person to fail

at riding a Onewheel.

- [Matti] Okay, take two!

- Ground has been broken, records have been set, let's go.

- Man, I thought I lived an exciting life,

but this guy flies around on a helicopter

and then he just busts out his Onewheel

and he just cruises around airports.

My life's lame.

- [Chris] City ground helicopter

November three zero zero whiskey Zulu Romeo.

Alright, let's do this, boys.

- Let's do it.

(energetic music)

Well, that was crazy.

Yeah, that was wild.

I've done some helicopter rides,

but that one was really cool,

especially because it was around Toronto.

Now, that wasn't a very good example,

because I filmed all of that on this 16 to 35 zoom lens,

because it's just a lot easier and faster.

When you're in a small helicopter

you can't really be switching lenses,

so prime lenses aren't so good for that,

but we will get to why prime lenses are great,

don't worry.

(upbeat music)

Okay, real talk.

It's been over a week since

I filmed that last part with Gene.

It's been great hanging out.

I got sick, real sick, lost my voice, all that stuff,

just been super tired and so I haven't gotten around

to finishing this video, but don't worry,

we're gonna talk about why primes are so good right now.

This guy, this guy, and this one.

It's a little off.

Alright, so why are primes so great?

Why wouldn't you, instead of buying a whole bunch of lenses

like this 35-mil, 24-mil, 50-mil,

why wouldn't you just buy a 24 to 70

and that covers the whole range?

Well, there's some important things to consider

if you're looking into lenses.

Prime lenses, which are just fixed focal lengths

so you can't zoom in on them,

they're just that one focal length, that's all it is.

That's that one focal length.

So this lens you can just focus, but there's no zoom on it.

Ah, this is still crooked.

And I think that's good now.

I'm a bit OCD with this kind of stuff.

So the first reason why you would get a prime lens

over something like a zoom lens.

Oh man, the battery's dying.

Hold on, I'll get a new battery.

I got two just in case.

And we're back.

Sorry for all the interruptions.

So the first reason why you would get a prime lens

is the wider aperture.

So they go to a smaller number aperture,

which means you're gonna get more shallow depth of field.

That's probably one of the best things that I like

about prime lenses.

You can just get that super nice background blur,

that bokeh in the background unlike anything else.

A zoom lens can never do the same thing.

The fastest zoom lens that there is out there is a 1.8,

I believe, and that's pretty fast,

but these lenses are all 1.4, there's 1.2.

And it doesn't sound like much of a difference

going from something like a F2.8 to 1.4,

but there's actually massive difference between the two.

So first off, I think it just looks more cinematic,

having that super nice shallow depth of field,

but then along with that comes better low light performance.

So you're gonna get more light into the sensor,

because it's making the lens aperture even wider

so more light is getting into the sensor

so it's way better for low light, filming at night time

or when you just don't have very much light.

You have way more exposure to work with,

you don't just have to crank up the ISO right away.

And again, it doesn't sound like that much of a difference

going from an F2.8 zoom lens to a 1.4,

but it's actually a lot of light that you're losing

when you go to F2.8 versus 1.4.

And then one of the things a lot of people talk about

is that primes are just sharper.

These primes are much sharper than zoom lenses

for the most part, but I'm not so concerned with that.

And I think some of that sharpness

is perceived sharpness, also.

When you're filming at a really wide aperture like F1.4,

it makes it look like it's super sharp,

because only your subject is in focus

and everything else is so blurry

so your subject looks like it's like really crispy sharp,

just in comparison to the background.

They are definitely sharper for the most part,

but a lot of it is also perceived.

But for me, this isn't really that big of a deal.

I think digital sensors are just already so sharp,

lenses are so sharp that, if anything,

I would want less sharp lenses.

I think it just kind of makes

it look a little bit too digital,

too clinical, it's a little bit too sharp a lot of time

so that for me is not a big thing at all.

And then lastly, prime lenses

are a lot cheaper than zoom lenses.

For example, this lens that I'm filming with right now,

it's the 16 to 35, it's around 2,000 dollars,

whereas these are about 900 dollars,

these Sigma Art series lenses, F1.4, this one's F2.8.

So these are a lot cheaper.

You can get two of these for the price of one lens.

Zooms are really, really expensive,

so it depends on your budget, too.

Can you even afford a zoom, because they are so pricey.

Now, you're gonna get more focal lengths

than something like a 16 to 35 or a 24 to 70,

but if you can't afford it then you can't afford it.

For me, my favorite prime lenses right now

are the 35-mil F1.4, the Sigma, and then the 24-mil F1.4

and I actually just literally bought this,

but this is a really nice range.

These are my favorites, but a really popular one also

is the 50-mil and the 85-mil.

I think those are the four most popular.

So if you're looking to get prime lenses,

I would go for one of those.

I would maybe go for a 35-mil and then an 85-mil

and with that you can do a lot,

35-mil is really flexible, really versatile.

You can get portraits, you can get a little bit wider shots

and then the 85 is just really nice and crisp

for portraits and that kind of stuff,

but I don't use the 85 very much,

because if I was filming myself with an 85,

I'd have to be, I'd have to be over here.

It'd be super zoomed in, so yeah,

I don't use the 85 too much,

but these two are my favorites right now.

And it's interesting, in the beginning of my career,

I was like, oh, I'm only gonna use primes.

Primes are the best, primes are gonna be the way to go.

And my first one was the 35-mil

and then I think it was the 85-mil, actually,

but then as my career progressed,

I started to buy some zooms and I started to see

that there's a place for zooms, also.

Primes are great, but zoom lenses are also great

and it really depends on the kind of things

that you're filming.

And part two of this little primes versus zooms,

we're gonna talk about why zooms are the way to go,

why you should get a zoom

instead of these little prime lenses.

So if you're interested, stay tuned for part two.

(upbeat music)

And if you haven't,

you should definitely check out Potato Jet's channel,

Gene is his actual name.

Highly recommend watching his content,