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Shutterbug Strasse A photographer's haven for the lastest in digital or traditional film cameras. |
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Shutterbug Strasse A photographer's haven for the lastest in digital or traditional film cameras. |
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In Reply to: Poll posted by Adi on May 16, 2001 at 14:04:35:
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 These are quite outdated by current standards, and do not provide the latest in high-contrast, high-sharpness imaging.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.
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Follow Ups
- 85 mm - 02Pete 20:47:47 11/22/02 (0)
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