Using good portrait lenses

Bryce

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I was wanting to get some studio supplies and start practicing on photographing people. Right now my main lenses are a 50mm 1.8 and a 24 wide 2.8. I was going to use the 50 for closer shots and the 24 for full body shots after I get studio backgrounds and lighting. Should I rethink the lenses I would use for this sort of thing? I was going to practice on my friends and their children. Any input on this would be appreciated.
 
24mm produces a pretty fair amount of apparent perspective distortion when used to photograph people...when a person extends his or her hands or arms toward the camera in a full-body or half-body shot and the camera has a 24mm lens on it, the hand will look bigger than the head of the person...not a good lens for people work in a "portrait" sense, on either APS-C or full-frame.
 
You can do some interesting portraiture with a 24mm lens, but it might be too artsy-fartsy for some peoples tastes.

Bill Brandt.
 
50mm for full body shots and 85-150mm for closer shots would be more typical.

24 mm is only really good for large group shots. A good rule of thumb is to try to make sure you are at least 10 feet away from your subject--although 12-15 feet would be better.
 
I love my 24mm for portraits, but it's not something i would use in the studio unless i intentionally wanted the grip in the shot.

When it comes to portraits and 24mm, 24 is generally best for environmental portraits, photojournalism for example where you want to fill the frame with the subject, but at the same time giving context as to where they're at.

For seriously formal portraits, I wouldn't want to go shorter than 50mm on FX.
 
I was worried that my 50mm was a bit to close, but I tested my wife in the frame and she fit in at 17', torso at about 6', and head and top of shoulders about 4'. Won't there be some flash adjustment or speed adjustment with such a distance variation and is 17' too far?
 
I was worried that my 50mm was a bit to close, but I tested my wife in the frame and she fit in at 17', torso at about 6', and head and top of shoulders about 4'. Won't there be some flash adjustment or speed adjustment with such a distance variation and is 17' too far?


Not really close especially if you have cropped frame.
 

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