"A 35mm lens give the perspective I expect no matter where I stand..." That doesn't make much sense - if you move, perspective changes.
Whatever it is you meant, you're not expressing it clearly. Lenses do not have any inherent effect on perspective, only distance does that. It's a common misunderstanding but since this is the beginner's section it should be right. At close distance, objects near the camera appear much larger than similar objects just behind. As distance increases, so the relative sizes become more similar. That's perspective, no lens involved.
It's often said that wide-angle lenses produce more exaggerated or dynamic perspective, but that's not what happens. A wide lens allows you to shoot close and still include everything in the frame, but it's the close distance that produces the perspective effect and the lens just records it.
Richard, no matter what I say you'll nit pick it to death and I've said this multiple times now and I can't understand how you don't "get it" but I'll give it one more go before I give up on humanity and go to bed
For the nth time and as this is beginners and as I want to be clear for anyone who hasn't lost the will to live yet, and slightly differently explained...
If I have a 35mm lens and I want a half body shot of Mrs WW with something in the background I have one distance I can shoot from (because I want a half body shot of the Mrs with something in the background) and therefore one perspective and I'm stuck with it. Yes I can move further away or indeed closer and get a different perspective but it's no longer a half body shot. I know this because I know what I'm going to get. I get the perspective I expect because I'm familiar with 35mm lenses!
If I take the prime off my camera and fit a 28-70mm zoom suddenly a whole new world of perspective possibilities opens up to me. If I position myself for the same half body shot at 70mm (at a greater distance from the Mrs) the background will look relatively larger and if I position myself for a half body shot at 28mm (closer to the Mrs) the background will look relatively smaller.
It's always a half body shot because that's what I want but how the scene in the background looks will change depending upon the focal length used and the distance that the focal length needs me to be at for a half body shot and this will give me different perspectives.
If I try to reproduce what is possible with the zoom with primes I'll need a few of them or I can reproduce the look of the 70mm shot with a 35mm prime by shooting from further back and cropping to 70mm framing.
Yes, I get that lenses don't change perspective only distance does that but when you're framing the shot you can do so at different distances at different focal lengths and get different perspectives including (hopefully) the one that gives you the result that suits you best.
My point in getting into all this was the comment above which I've heard before that you should learn with primes. I do think that there's maybe a little prime snobbery out there in the world and I just wanted to say that although primes can make you think about positioning and framing and everything else so do zooms... Yes with a zoom you can stand in one place zooming in and out and snapping away all day but another thing you can do is position yourself for the perspective you want and then adjust the focal length to frame the shot. You can use a 35mm prime all day and be very happy but getting 70mm or 28mp perspective out of a 35mm is going to take some work
but with a zoom and some brain power there are possibilities and with a zoom you can get a shot with the framing and perspective that you'd get from a 70mm, a 50mm, a 35mm or a 28mm and so on.
That was my point.
Thank You And Goodnight