Best portrait lens?

[bevoholic]

An ex coworker of mine gave my name out to a friend of hers and now she wants me to do some family portraits for her. Right now, all I have are my 18-55 and 70-300. What's a good lens that I could get? I have a D5000 and I will be working outside. Oh, and fairly cheap would be nice.

The lenses you have will work fine, as long as you understand how to use them.

There is no one best portrait lens. Which lens gets used depends on a number of factors: indoor or outdoor how many people in the shot, how much light is available, strobed light or available light how far from the background the subject(s) are, etc.?

For a family I would use the 70-300 if I have the room to be back from them.

Were I you, I'd be thinking more about how I would be lighting them.

It's going to be outdoors, as I don't have any indoor studio equipment yet and that's what the lady wants. Hopefully lighting shouldn't be too much of an issue.

 

[AmberNikol]

An ex coworker of mine gave my name out to a friend of hers and now she wants me to do some family portraits for her. Right now, all I have are my 18-55 and 70-300. What's a good lens that I could get? I have a D5000 and I will be working outside. Oh, and fairly cheap would be nice.

The lenses you have will work fine, as long as you understand how to use them.

There is no one best portrait lens. Which lens gets used depends on a number of factors: indoor or outdoor how many people in the shot, how much light is available, strobed light or available light how far from the background the subject(s) are, etc.?

For a family I would use the 70-300 if I have the room to be back from them.

Were I you, I'd be thinking more about how I would be lighting them.

It's going to be outdoors, as I don't have any indoor studio equipment yet and that's what the lady wants. Hopefully lighting shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Best time for outdoor lighting is early morning or late evening...just FYI. The lighting is best then, IMO.

 

[reznap]

KmH said it all. Nothing wrong with your lenses. Can you fire your SB600 remotely? Do you have any lighting modifiers? Might make a big difference...

 

[Stradawhovious]

It's going to be outdoors, as I don't have any indoor studio equipment yet and that's what the lady wants. Hopefully lighting shouldn't be too much of an issue.

You may want to consider looking into reflectors or flash.

The reflectors can be as simple as large pieces of white poster board (usually about 2'x2' or larger, 1.00 or less if you have a good dollar store around). For outdoor portraits, in lieu of a flash the reflectors will do wonders for lighting and eliminating shadows. I bought a 42" 5-in-1 reflector off the intrawebs ($18 delivered), and plan on buying another. I use it far more often than I thought.

I don't believe your D5000 has a commander mode to fire the SB-600 remotely, but I may be wrong. Either way, it wouldn't do much good in bright daylight anyways. (the commander mode that is, the flash would do plenty of good) For the flash you might want to look into a radio trigger. I bought one for about $60 from the local photo store, and it works great.

ETA... you can get larger "reflectors" from the hardware store if you are creative... there are all kinds of white paneling out there, some as big as 4'x8' sheets. Use your imagination, and use what works... it doesn't always have to have a brand name on it.

My .02, IANAL, YMMV and all that.

remember what you paid for my advice, it's worth roughly half that.

 

[bevoholic]

KmH said it all. Nothing wrong with your lenses. Can you fire your SB600 remotely? Do you have any lighting modifiers? Might make a big difference...

I can't fire it remotely, but I have the cable so I can keep it off camera on a stand and still use it. I don't have any lighting modifiers.

 

[reznap]

^ Ah ok. Not sure what you normally like to shoot, but OCF is very useful in more than just portraiture. I picked up a set of (cowboystudio) radio triggers from amazon for 20 bucks. I've found them to be very reliable and pretty decent range-wise. You have to set the flash power manually when using cheap radio triggers.

Here's a link to $20 triggers and $40 light stand and umbrella.. It's cheap entry-level stuff, but I can pretty much assure you it would do more for your pictures than a new lens. If you want shallow DOF, that's more than possible with your 70-300, especially around the 200mm range.

Amazon.com: CowboyStudio NPT-04 4 Channel Wireless Hot Shoe Flash Trigger Receiver for Canon EOS, Nikon, Olympus & Pentax Flashes Other products by cowboystudio: Camera & Photo
Amazon.com: CowboyStudio Speedlite Flash Kit Photography Photo Studio Flash Mount Umbrellas Kit: Camera & Photo

 

[bevoholic]

^ Ah ok. Not sure what you normally like to shoot, but OCF is very useful in more than just portraiture. I picked up a set of (cowboystudio) radio triggers from amazon for 20 bucks. I've found them to be very reliable and pretty decent range-wise. You have to set the flash power manually when using cheap radio triggers.

Here's a link to $20 triggers and $40 light stand and umbrella.. It's cheap entry-level stuff, but I can pretty much assure you it would do more for your pictures than a new lens. If you want shallow DOF, that's more than possible with your 70-300, especially around the 200mm range.

Amazon.com: CowboyStudio NPT-04 4 Channel Wireless Hot Shoe Flash Trigger Receiver for Canon EOS, Nikon, Olympus & Pentax Flashes Other products by cowboystudio: Camera & Photo
Amazon.com: CowboyStudio Speedlite Flash Kit Photography Photo Studio Flash Mount Umbrellas Kit: Camera & Photo

Even outside?

 

[bevoholic]

^ Ah ok. Not sure what you normally like to shoot, but OCF is very useful in more than just portraiture. I picked up a set of (cowboystudio) radio triggers from amazon for 20 bucks. I've found them to be very reliable and pretty decent range-wise. You have to set the flash power manually when using cheap radio triggers.

Here's a link to $20 triggers and $40 light stand and umbrella.. It's cheap entry-level stuff, but I can pretty much assure you it would do more for your pictures than a new lens. If you want shallow DOF, that's more than possible with your 70-300, especially around the 200mm range.

Amazon.com: CowboyStudio NPT-04 4 Channel Wireless Hot Shoe Flash Trigger Receiver for Canon EOS, Nikon, Olympus & Pentax Flashes Other products by cowboystudio: Camera & Photo
Amazon.com: CowboyStudio Speedlite Flash Kit Photography Photo Studio Flash Mount Umbrellas Kit: Camera & Photo

Even outside?

 

[Stradawhovious]

Even outside?

Here is a link that I think will help answer. I didn't read any of the text, but it does show some examples of with and without both flash and reflectors. It's pretty drastic.

Improve Your Outdoor Portraits with Fill-in Flash

 

[CNCO]

depending how much you want to spend and what your expectations are. i suggest if you are asking then you are an amateur doing this for your first time. i suggest you use what you got and see the quality. me personally something with a low aperture value will work. the 85mm is very nice but the 50mm works just as well. there are two 50mm one is 1.8 and 1.4. I have the 1.8 and its awesome, i could only imagine the 1.4

 

[AmberNikol]

How much do reflectors usually cost?

 

[KmH]

How much do reflectors usually cost?

It depends on the type of reflector you're looking at.

 

[AmberNikol]

How much do reflectors usually cost?

It depends on the type of reflector you're looking at.

How about lets say for a starter one. Something that will do the job well without breaking the bank.

 

[bevoholic]

Thanks for all your help guys. As you can tell, I am new to this and all your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[KmH]

Even outside?

Optical triggers like Nikon's CLS don't work well outside. They use IR (infrared) light and the Sun's IR light overwhelms them.

So outside you use radio triggers. If you have a light stand and umbrella setup outside, you need to weight the legs of the stand to make it less susceptible to being tipped over by people or wind.
Ankle weights from Wal-Mart will work for that purpose.

Don't try and shoot in direct or dappled sunlight. Put your subjects in open shade. Then use strobed or reflected light to separate your subjects from the background, light wise.