portrait lens

[chjing]

hi, what kind of lens is considered a portrait lens?

[gary wong]

tamron 90mm F2.8

[chjing]

hi, must it be a f/2.8? and what is the focal length range suitable?

[Youhong]

Lens with focal length 85mm and above... 50mm if you are shooting in confine space, or a small studio... Prime lens will be

[overcrash]

for me 85mm to 135mm would be consider portrait lenses. =)
having just the right distance to work and also giving off smooth DOF

[raptor84]

Well 35mm or 50mm for full to half body portraits 85 and above for head and shoulder and other tight crop shots. the 24-70 and 70-200 are other popular choices as well.

[episodic]

50mm and 85mm works really well for me - they never fail to accompany me for protraiture shoots.

[jnet6]

all lens can be consider a portrait lens.
depends on the person behind the viewfinder

[spartacus.ret]

traditional focal lengths - 85mm-135mm

50mm f/1.4
85mm f/1.8
100mm f/2
135mm f/2

[Gunjack]

It depends, even wide angle lens might be used, hehe! Here are some of my first wide angle shots I just tried recently.

Tokina 12-24mm f4









And telephoto prime, the Tamron 90mm f2.8 DI macro

[overcrash]

Originally Posted by jnet6 all lens can be consider a portrait lens. depends on the person behind the viewfinder

i do agree, but textbook quotes are 85mm to 135 mm.
Thats wat the threadstarter wanted to know, so i just gave him the textbook answer.
If not, like what you said, the 16mm or 1000mm can also be considered portrait lense..

[Larren Chen]

how about Sigma 10-20 ??

[Youhong]

Try not to use wide angle if you're not good at controlling it... Wide angle tends to distort the picture... Then your model will say:"why you make me look so fat??"

Even if you want full body, not necessary to use wide also, you can move backwards if you have space to do so...

[Youhong]

Here's an example by a pro using wide angle...
http://forums.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?t=209358

[acerpic]

85mm 1.4 produces very good bokeh, but 50mm 1.4 give you convenience to take both full body and close up.

If you lazy to change lens and want to take wide angle, full body and close up. 17-55 F2.8

[unseen]

Originally Posted by overcrash i do agree, but textbook quotes are 85mm to 135 mm. Thats wat the threadstarter wanted to know, so i just gave him the textbook answer. If not, like what you said, the 16mm or 1000mm can also be considered portrait lense..

Textbook answer would be:
any lense above 50mm would be useful for beauty shots/facial/closer up shots. They don't distort the faces. As for using 50, 60, 85, 90, 100, 135mm, 200mm, 300mm it depends on the compression of the person/background that you require.

Use lenses below 50mm too close to the subject, when you fill the frame with the subject face, you will notice the big nose effect. 99% of the time it is not nice. However if you were to do full body portraiture/environmental portraiture, the "problems/shortfalls" of wide angle lenses aren't that noticable.

Once again, it depends on what you envision the final image to be. *shrug* there are pros in miami who use 300mm prime lenses to shoot full body/environmental portraiture. I know a pro in sg who does full body group shots of 5 girls standing in a inverted V formation using 200mm prime (in a studio no less).

Best is to know what you want and the lens to give you that result will be the best portrait lens.

On another note. I suppose that's why many portraiture photos in the relevant sub forum are all the same, most photos don't really stand out. That's because they've all been brainwashed to think 85-135mm are the best portraiture lenses. That's why you see many "pros" stagnant at a certain level.

[sophiandy]

Originally Posted by chjing hi, must it be a f/2.8?

How much is your budget for a portrait lens?

Well, the smaller the f/stop, the shallower the depth of field. You'll get better bokeh (blurring of the background), thus, making the subject stands out. However, such lenses tend to be more expensive as well.

For example, a Nikkor AF 85mm f/1.4D IF is worth approximately S$1630, whereas a Nikkor AF-S DX 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G is worth approximately S$480.

Back to my original question. How much is your budget for a portrait lens?

[Tetrode]

The "ideal" focal length for classical portraiture is 90mm according to the textbooks.


Of course, many here would disagree and they are entitled to their opinions.

[cheersjy]

Just curious - is the 90mm suggested by textbook refers to film or digital body? On digital body is it 135mm liao (due to crop factor), and 50mm lens becomes 75mm.

[ExplorerZ]

if you are newb like me, a zoom f2.8 lens would be great. sigma is coming out with its 50-150 f2.8. the size/focal length/wide aperture makes it very good for portrait.