To illustrate your last point, this[1] is a Great Blue Heron photo taken at 280mm focal length, the heron was about 56m away. This[2] is the same bird, from the

To illustrate your last point, this[1] is a Great Blue Heron photo taken at 280mm focal length, the heron was about 56m away. This[2] is the same bird, from the same location, taken at 840mm focal length (zoomed in all the way, using the 200-600mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter). And after a close crop, this[3] is a pretty decent photo of the heron. Somewhat distracting background and some branches in front, but I prefer not to edit everything out like some people do because I want to convey a sense of what the environment is like. Later on the same walk, a Grey Catbird landed right in front of me. Fully zoomed in to 840mm I couldn't even get a good portrait shot showing the head and shoulders, just the head. So I zoomed out and got this[4], which I could easily crop for a good portrait. No need to back up and risk scaring the bird. Money is one obstacle to a big prime lens (the Sony 600mm f/4 lens is $14,000!), but another obstacle is weight and bulk. I wouldn't want to give up having a zoom lens ready on a camera, to allow for otherwise impossible compositions. So I know I'd end up carrying two cameras, one with a 600mm behemoth and the other with the 200-600mm zoom, and my shoulders would hurt. And they'd be bulky and getting in my way, etc. Primes are nice, but they're not perfect for every situation, and gatekeeping photographers for not having primes is stupid. [1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/193634150@N07/52188406196 https://www.flickr.com/photos/193634150@N07/52188406196 [2] https://www.flickr.com/photos/193634150@N07/52188661399 https://www.flickr.com/photos/193634150@N07/52188661399 [3] https://www.flickr.com/photos/193634150@N07/52187390672 https://www.flickr.com/photos/193634150@N07/52187390672 [4] https://www.flickr.com/photos/193634150@N07/52187392882 https://www.flickr.com/photos/193634150@N07/52187392882