There are many articles, youtube videos, and general opinion on prime lenses (one focal length) vs zoom lenses. The most common advice is that primes are sharper, and often generally better. Many people say if you want to zoom, use your feet…

Using your feet to zoom assumes that you are only using a zoom lens to change the magnification of the lens. In other words, it assumes you are changing the focal length to “get closer” to your subject. If this is all you are doing, then moving your feet may be a viable option. This may be a bit difficult in a number of situations, but that is not the main reason I have a problem with this explanation.

Choosing your point of view has less to do with subject magnification than with perspective. This is important, so let me explain. The closer you are to your subject, the larger the apparent distance between foreground and background. This perspective is NOT affected by lens focal length or sensor size, only distance to your subject.{{1}} As a very general rule, the relative size of foreground and background is quite important for fine art.

 When I am shooting with a zoom lens, I first choose the perspective by using my feet to establish my subject distance. Then I zoom so that I only include the frame I want. In other words, I use the zoom more as a crop tool than a magnifier.

Of course there are always exceptions to every rule…

[[1]]You can prove this for yourself. set your camera up on a tripod with a few subjects at various distances. Without moving the tripod, take a number of photos with different focal length lenses (or zoom your lens from minimum through maximum) Now crop the wide angle images to the same area as the telephoto images. Other than possible noise or resolution issues, the two images will look the same.

The second half of this experiment would be to move the tripod so the foreground object is the same size with the different lenses/focal lengths. You will see the background “recede” as you move closer to your foreground subject.

You can do this same test with different cameras or whatever. As long as the distance to your foreground subject stays the same.[[1]]