Is 85mm really ideal for portraits?

[smoke665]

I have a good selection of Pentax primes and zooms that cover me from about 18mm through 300mm, including primes in the sweet spots of 50mm, 70mm, 100mm and 135mm. Up until recently my favorite for portraits was a legacy 135mm f/1.8. The sharpness, colors and creamy Bokeh are just fantastic, but the manual focus is getting harder for these old eyes to manage. I recently added the new HD FA 70-200mm f/2.8 this year and can't believe how well this thing performs. The only downside is the size and weight almost 6lbs for the lens alone. A heavy crop from a recent Valentines shoot (200mm, f/7.1, 1/200). The whole set is here Valentines 2021 , check out the details in the eye lashes. and iris.

 

[mrca]

Petrochemist, I pick my distance then pick my lens. Same spread I have used for decades. 35, 85, 135 and 180. Only thing a zoom saves is a lens change. The best zooms today, take the 70-200 have lots of light eating glass in them. It has 22 vs the 6 in my zeiss 85mm planar. Coatings cut reflection somewhat, but glass still sucks up light as it goes through every element and low energy light (my zeiss glass has leaded glass elements that transmits even more light, newer nikon canon lenses stopped using lead for pollution reasons) , the shadows go to mud. The micro contrast it produces is what has been called Zeiss pop or Leica look a more 3D rendering, for decades. I walked into a gallery from an old retired newspaper photog and I looked as his images and I said one word quizically, Leica? He nodded and smiled with approval. Yes, new zooms may have great resolution, low vignetting which I add to every image, perhaps less CA, I can remove that in post, but I can't add shadow detail that was sucked out by all that glass. I recently won a competition in part because they weren't used to seeing that level of detail in the large shadow area. I had metered and adjusted my lights to place them in an areas I have tested with this paper to hold detail. No question, a zoom is handy and I still use a 24-70 for events but the lens on the body over my should isn't the beast 70-200 any more, it's the 135 that blows it away in image quality and since that type of work rarely calls for a large print can crop it heavily. In studio, I use it because it loosely fills the frame set to square at my preferred headshot subject perspective distance. I don't need a zoom there. But in a fast paced situation where I can't move forward or back, definitely that 24-70. There is a reason that lens has made photographers more many than any other. But put a shot with my zeiss 35 mm distagon 2.0 next to it and no comparison. Horses for courses. And if I shoot it at f/11, I can zone focus from say 8 ' to about 14' and not have to focus.