a good portrait lens?

[amayna11]

My main interest is portrait photography right now and my friend(who is a photographer) suggested the 50mm f/1.4 for doing portraits. I was just wondering what everyone else thought. If you do portrait photography what is your go to lens? Which one do you love?


Amanda

[inkista]

EF 135mm f/2L USM, but I have a full-frame Canon body.

Four things we really want to know before we can give you recommendations:

1) What camera you're shooting with. Whether you've got a full frame or a crop body, and whether it has a focus motor makes a difference in the recommendations.

2) What's your budget? (single biggest determining factor on what you're likely to take seriously as a recommendation. I mean, someone can say you need the Zeiss ZF.2 Makro-Planar 100/2, but if you aren't looking to spend $1800 on a manual focus only lens...

3) What kind of framing do you plan to do with this lens? Full body? head shots?

4) What kind of shooting are you doing? Are you in studios with lighting? Indoors without lighting? Outside? Who are your subjects? Adults who sit still? Or little kids who run around?

[LoveDSLR]

Originally Posted by amayna11

My main interest is portrait photography right now and my friend(who is a photographer) suggested the 50mm f/1.4 for doing portraits.

It is OK for full body shot (full frame).

Originally Posted by amayna11

If you do portrait photography what is your go to lens? Which one do you love?

Depending on the shooting distance and type of portrait shots:

24-70 f/2.8, 85 f/1.2, 105 f/2.5 and 70-200 f/2.8 for full frame DSLR.
80, 150 and 250mm for 6x6 medium format film.

[amayna11]

Thanks for responding

1. camera I have:

a Nikon D3100. It lacks the autofocus motor in the camera body which is why it requires AF-S and AF-I lenses.


2. My budget:
I am just starting out and really can't afford an extremely expensive lense right now. The max would probably be around 800 that I could spend.

3. What kind of framing I plan to do:

I plan to do both full body and head shots.


4. What kind of shooting I am going to do.. studio with lighting? indoors? outside? who are subjects? adults ? or children?

Most of my work will be outside with some indoor portraits on occasion. When I do the indoor portraits they will more than likely be in low light conditions. I plan on photographing both adults and children.



Once again any advice would be great. I am fairly new to photography so I'm unsure as to what lens would be the best one. Thanks again.



Amanda

[KenRC51]

For crop sensor 50 1.4G or D is good, also the 24-70 2.4 What might also be a better choice is the new 85 1.4, I haven't used it but heard it a great lens and expensive too.

[inkista]

amayna11, given what you've stated, I'd actually recommend that you look at the $200 AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX as a portrait lens.

1. It has AF-S.
2. It's not expensive.
3. It's considered "normal" on a crop: not particularly wide or long, and will give you good working distances for either headshots or full body shots inside.
4. It opens up to f/1.8, which will be wide enough to do available light shooting (although, you could also go with a flash for the lower light conditions).

The main downsides are that it's a prime, so you have to run around a lot. It's a consumer lens, so the performance isn't knock-your-socks-off-amazing (then again, you generally are paying four figures to get that), but it's good and sharp, with some CA if you stop the lens down (wide open, it's great, and that's likely to be where you're using it most of the time). Getting rid of CA in post can be a pain, but it's doable. It's an extraordinarily popular and versatile lens, and I wish like hell that Canon had a similar EF-S lens on offer.

[autofocus]

Originally Posted by inkista

amayna11, given what you've stated, I'd actually recommend that you look at the $200 AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX as a portrait lens.

1. It has AF-S.
2. It's not expensive.
3. It's considered "normal" on a crop: not particularly wide or long, and will give you good working distances for either headshots or full body shots inside.
4. It opens up to f/1.8, which will be wide enough to do available light shooting (although, you could also go with a flash for the lower light conditions).

The main downsides are that it's a prime, so you have to run around a lot. It's a consumer lens, so the performance isn't knock-your-socks-off-amazing (then again, you generally are paying four figures to get that), but it's good and sharp, with some CA if you stop the lens down (wide open, it's great, and that's likely to be where you're using it most of the time). Getting rid of CA in post can be a pain, but it's doable. It's an extraordinarily popular and versatile lens, and I wish like hell that Canon had a similar EF-S lens on offer.

+1 on what Inkista said. We have the 35 f/1.8 in our mix of lenses, and it is a very nice lens for what you want to do. The 85mm mentioned above is a nice lens, but you'll be looking at a considerable subject to camera distance for full body shots...and it's very difficult to use in tight quarters

[Almond.Butterscotch]

Originally Posted by inkista

amayna11, given what you've stated, I'd actually recommend that you look at the $200 AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX as a portrait lens.

1. It has AF-S.
2. It's not expensive.
3. It's considered "normal" on a crop: not particularly wide or long, and will give you good working distances for either headshots or full body shots inside.
4. It opens up to f/1.8, which will be wide enough to do available light shooting (although, you could also go with a flash for the lower light conditions).

+0.5 on that one. I love my 35mm f/1.8. It's my favorite lens. I use it for everything- it's a workhorse. It's certainly great for full body and upper body portraits.

For headshots though, you'll either (a) want something longer or (b) want to crop a lot because the distortion that close up is fairly pronounced.

Headshots with cropping:




Full body on street:

[sk66]

I'd suggest the sigma 24-70 f/2.8 HSM.
It is slower than the 35/50mm by a stop so not great for the lowest light situations, but the versatility, performance, and range for the price outweighs that IMO.

Honestly, I don't think you should be considering "indoor low light" as a primary criteria. It's one of the most difficult/costly scenarios to get into.