tom burke

Walking around Hong Kong in the heat and humidity I certainly appreciated it light weight, and given the cramped conditions I also loved the abiltity to shoot at 16mm.

If I am out on the street at night, I'll often open up the lens. I love the shallow depth of field look. This is the 35mm at f/2.0

I see everyone seems to be focusing on image quality, but a key point in your original statement was your propensity to destroy cameras and lenses. Maybe the selection criteria for the prime you choose should be most difficult to break. In that case you decision is easy. The shorter the physical length of the lens the harder it will be to damage it. So you should by the 27mm pancake!

The dynamic range of shooting raw. Middle of the night, 27mm f/2.8, Melbourne Australia.

I love it because it is so small and inconspicuous. You pull it out, step in close to get that wide angle perspective, and people do not even blink. You get a great 'natural' shot. If I try to do the same with my Nikon D810 with the 14-24mm zoom, everyone would stop and stare. This is the 18mm late in the evening in the streets of Singapore.

You are taking environmental portraiture, so my pick would be a fast wide angle. This will throw the background sufficiently out of focus to avoid distraction, but still have sufficient sharpness to give the 'environment' information. This is taken with the 18mm at f/2.8.