Many prime lens advocates, including myself, talk about zooming with your feet. You can walk closer or farther away if you need to frame a picture, even if you don’t have a zoom lens. However, this doesn’t always work.

Sometimes, you’re in a tight space and can’t physically move further back. Other times, something limits you from moving forward. This was the case at this musical performance at the Trail of Lights.

In the first photo, I zoomed in with the Leica D-Lux 8 to a maximum 75mm equivalent. This made a nice picture of the trio performing Christmas music.

In actuality, as you can see in the picture, I was back away from the stage, set to the widest at a 24mm equivalent. While I could’ve physically moved to the edge of the stage without a zoom lens, that would’ve disrupted the view and the performance for all the other audience members. Though you can’t see it in these pictures, there were a considerable number of people standing next to me, equidistant from the stage.

Other popular compact cameras, such as the Fujifilm X100 VI and Ricoh GR III, have prime, non-zooming lenses. With those cameras, my options would be limited, or I could be that annoying guy messing things up for the others.

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