How To Decide Between a Kit Lens vs An Affordable Prime Lens

When shopping for a new camera, it is very tempting to go for the optional kit lens. The advantage of kit lenses is the practical zoom focal range along with the discount you get when buying it together with your camera.

However, we all know that prime lenses boast some strong advantages as well. When you’re on a budget, you might be stuck with the question: kit lens vs prime lens, what’s the right solution for me? 

Today we’re going to dive deep into this, because it’s not an easy decision. It depends on your budget and what types of images you want to be able to take. 

We’re going to talk about pros and cons of both kit lenses and prime lenses. We’ll also dive into the cost differences with popular alternative lenses. 

Finally, we’ll talk about how to choose if the kit or a prime lens is right for you. 

Kit Lenses: Are They Good Enough?

When you buy a camera you can either buy the body only, or buy the body prepackaged with a lens. Kit lenses are lenses that come as a package deal with the camera body. 

When I discuss kit lenses, I typically am referring to beginner cameras and their associated kit lenses. That is what we will be focusing on today. 

High end cameras also can come prepackaged with a “kit lens” at a discount, but those lenses typically cost over $1,000 USD alone. For example, take this Canon R5. You can get the body only for $3899, or add on a 24-105 f/4L for $4999. 

We won’t be talking about this high level of a kit lens in this article. More often than not, professional photographers are the ones spending $4-5K on this type of camera. 

The lens that I will be referring to in this article is the famous 18-55mm kit lens that is found on cameras like the Canon EOS T7, T8i and the Nikon D5600, D3500. 

If you’re a Sony user, this references the famous 16-50mm kit lens 

So what are the pros and cons of kit lenses?

Pros

Kit lenses have a very practical zoom range. The Canon 18-55mm kit gives you a great 18mm wide angle for landscapes. 55mm closes up the shot which is great for portraits and other subject isolation pictures. It is very adaptable being a zoom lens.  

The cost is very low for kit lenses. They make the most economical sense for those on a tight budget. 

Newer kit lenses have quiet AF motors, so they are not as loud as they once were. 

Cons

Kit lenses are made to be affordable, and thus don’t have the best quality glass. Optical quality is pretty much at the base of what the manufacturer offers. 

Low cost means less effort on build quality as well. They are mostly plastic and have no protection like weather sealing. They don’t feel like high quality lenses. Not that that is an important feature. Just an observation. 

Zoom lenses need more optical elements to function. Cheaper optical elements stacked can reduce optical quality further. 

Kit zoom lenses are also non-fixed aperture lenses. That means as you zoom in, your max aperture keeps changing. At the widest angle you can max out at f/3.5. Zoomed all the way in, you can only go to f/5.6. 

This is not the best for subject isolation and light intake. You will have to shoot at higher ISO or slower shutter speeds to get the same amount of light as a prime lens. Higher ISO can introduce more image noise, and slower shutter speeds make you more susceptible to camera shake and motion blur. 

The kit lens cons is what drove my article on the single best kit lens alternative. 

Prime Lenses: Are They Better?

Prime lenses are lenses that have a single focal length. They don’t do any zooming.

Pros

The most notable advantage you will always hear about prime lenses is their superior optical quality.

Manufacturers spend a lot of time designing lens elements for maximum sharpness. This process is much simpler with a single focal length lens. The only moving element is for focusing on your subject

Compare that against zoom lenses where they have to be able to zoom between different focal lengths, and they have to be sharp at the entire focal range of each focal length. Sounds harder to perfect, doesn’t it? 

 They also have a larger maximum aperture. 

Cons

A prime lens is just a fixed focal length. If you want a closer shot, you don’t have the luxury of zoom. You have to walk closer to your subject. 

Or you have to crop in post processing. But that only outputs good images to a certain extent. Too much cropping and you can get pixelation or emphasize lens aberration issues. 

If you want to get a wider view, you have to walk backwards. And sometimes, that’s impossible. A prime lens is more restrictive for day to day photography. 

Cost Differences

Cost of A Kit Lens

Let’s use the example of the Canon EOS T8i. 

Camera Body: $749.00
Camera w/ 18-55 Kit Lens: $899.00
Kit Lens Effective Cost: $150

Kit Lens Shelf Price: $199

That means you save $50 with the body and kit lens combo. Not a huge amount, but definitely something. 

Prime Lens Considerations

Because our kit lens technically costs us only $150, we need to land around there for our prime lens to keep the overall budget relatively level. 

If we go way over this budget, this idea of swapping a kit lens for a prime lens doesn’t really make sense. Of course very expensive lenses are going to perform better than a kit lens. 

Here are some great prime lenses that land around the $150 level. 

Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 “Pancake Lens” Nikon 35mm f/1.8

A lot of those lenses fall under the $150 kit lens cost. 

Many of these lenses can also be found used for great prices. People consider them “beginner” lenses, but you can take superb images with these lenses. It’s a great way to save even more money. 

Why You Should Choose a Prime Over a Kit Lens

1) Restrictions Breed Creativity

Being restricted in focal length forces creativity. You can’t just zoom in or out as you want. You walk around, think of different ways to approach the image. 

You think about what details are in your foreground and background if you can’t zoom in further. Or you think about what details you omit because you can’t zoom out further. 

Overall you are more conscious of composition and taking steps to get the best image you can. This all in turn will make you a better photographer in the long run. 

2) A Unique Composition

A fixed focal length can make your images more unique. When most photographers see a sweeping landscape, they all might zoom out to the widest angle to capture the entire landscape. 

If you only have a 50mm prime, you are going to isolate the details. Parts of the landscape that make it what it is. You can isolate a mountain peak, or the flowers in the foreground. The possibilities are endless, and the framing will be unique. 

Most other photographers just zoom to a focal length that they desire. When you are forced to be in one focal length you automatically have a different perspective and a different composition than others. 

3) Higher Quality Images

When you have a prime lens, you can be confident that the images you’re capturing are much sharper than the kit lens equivalent would have been. 

Your exposure settings can take advantage of higher shutter speeds and lower ISO noise due to the increased aperture prime lenses typically have. 

Higher quality images are worth more, and are just plain nicer to look at.

4) Primes Can Take You Further

 A kit lens can be outgrown very quickly depending on how committed you get with photography. 

Prime lenses on the other hand will be harder to outgrow due to their strong optical performance. Prepare for a prime to live in your camera bag for a while. That means prime lenses are a more sound investment. 

5) Less To Go Wrong

Due to the simplicity of prime lenses, they have less moving parts. There is less to go wrong, which means your lens will last much longer in better condition. 

This also makes it hold resale value better as well!

The Only Reason You Should Choose a Kit Lens

If you want to try out different types of photography, the kit zoom lens lets you do that more easily. 

If you want to experiment with wide landscapes you just zoom out. If you want to test out portraits, just zoom in.

A zoom lens can clue you in on what focal length you use the most. You can make a more informed decision on buying a prime lens upgrade at your favorite focal length. 

If you’re always at 55mm when shooting with a kit lens. You might want to try a 50mm prime, or even an 85mm prime. If you’re always shooting at the widest angle, you might want a wide angle prime. 

You can always upgrade your setup and a kit lens can help you experiment with different types of photography and make better decisions on what lens is next.