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what's your favourite lens and settings for potraits?
Adi
Follow Ups:
Romy makes a good point that effective portraits of people may be made with almost any focal length of lens, using almost any film or digital format. What the photographer sees and conveys about the subject is more important than the equipment used. Having said that, though, a good argument can be made that the 85 mm focal length for 35 mm cameras is particularly effective for taking portraits of people under a variety of conditions, for several reasons. These lenses are relatively fast (f/1.8, f/1.9, f/2), so they make it possible to shoot at hand-holdable speeds using available light without flash under most conditions. This means that they are relatively unobtrusive and can be used to take pictures of people interacting in social situations without being disruptive. When the combination of lighting conditions and film speed allows the use of their wider aperture settings, their relatively shallow depth of field allows the subject to be in focus while the background is out of focus, directing attention to the subject and providing a sense of depth to a two-dimensional image. They get in close enough to provide a clear image of the subject's face, yet include enough to provide more than just the head and shoulders type of image one typically gets with longer lenses. I have a couple of older 85 mm lenses -- an old 85 mm f/1.9 Canon lens for Leica-thread rangefinder cameras, and an old 85 mm f/1.8 FL stop-down metering manual focus lens for older Canon SLRs. These are quite outdated by current standards, and do not provide the latest in high-contrast, high-sharpness imaging. They are very usable and effective, however, and consistently deliver good results in terms of the actual pictures taken, which in my view means more than the numbers in MTF tests.
Canon EF 100/2.8 Macro lens..... the best edge to edge sharpness and best perspective for portraiture... IMHO
What you want to do with it? How do you want to shot it? What do you want to get from it? Are you talking about the portraying of a face? Is any difference is making: to “do correct” a face, landscape or an ass of the monkey? I have no idea what you asking. Probably you are talking about what the salespeople who shot once during the Xmas labeled the “portrait” focus distance… I see…The Mamiya’s 127/4.5 for BR’s and the Hasselblad’s 100-120/5.6 were comfortable to work dally with, though they required closing the stop all the way down. The old huge Russian Helios 85/1.5 (properly rebuild and recalibrated only) was remarkable lens for 24x36 film that worked wonderfully with an opened hole, at the same range most of 50 mm Leica’s from 1936 to 1940 did very good job (for b&w film only). Among the “real lenses” the Rodenstock’s Sironars 150-250 and Schneider’s Symmars 150-300 mm kicked the asses.
Actually why the only 2-4x of the film diagonal? I got some very interesting “portrait” results with mirrored 500mm and with severely customized Flectogon 24 mm! (Probably the best lens I ever have seen)
…. the “portrait” lens… Its like the turntable for Mozart of the speaker cable for Bach…
Romy the Cat
Zuiko 85mm F2 at F4-F5.6. Jeez, feel like an old-timer throwing that one out.--Len
Depends on where I am and how much light. The 105 colours are wonderful.
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I am using Nikon 24-120 3.5-5.6 lens between 100 and 120mm. Sometimes, I feel 120mm is too short and f5.6 isnt enough. Thinking of getting 80-200 lens, but cant bring myself to spend 1.5k on a f2.8 lens which I would really love to have. Not so sure how much I would be gaining by getting a f4-5.6 lens.May be I will first sell the N70 and get N80 which has DOF preview.
Adi
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Don't know if the 5.6 is any particular advantage. It's a GREAT portrait lens.
Steve
My 105mm f2.5 Nikkor I use on my ancient (film) Nikon F and aperture-priority Nikon (forget the designation). I tried and briefly owned both the 85mm F1.8 ( a little too short) and the 135mm F2.8 (a little too long!). F-stops vary, I use the depth-of-field preview to previsualize what I'll get if there's enough light to choose (I like existing light and color transparencies). But you can shoot wide open if you remember one simple rule: always focus on the eye that's closest to you.
165MM Pentax for P67.I use about F8 on either one, and usually 1/30 (pentax) or 1/60,
with two light sources, and a diffusor, in about 2.5 or 3:1 ratio.
JJ
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