Is a 50mm lens worth it for portraits?

[chuasam]

I use my 50mm f1.4 on a full frame 98.76% of the time for. It's very versatile. I also have a 35 f1.4, 85 f1.4, 105 f2.8, and a 70-200 f2.8 VR2 but always come back to my 50mm.

I have the Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.4G, honestly I think it is barely adequate. I use it lots though. I'm deciding whether to sell it and get the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART or sell my 85mm f/1.8G and get the 105mm f/1.4E

Barely adequate in what way?

What are you seeking to improve?

I often shoot wide open. That's the point of a 1,4.
It's acceptably sharp at f/2 but wide open it's just really unsharp.

 

[fmw]

I hate 50 mm for portraits! a fast 85 mm prime is a better choice in my opinion. even with a crop sensor.

There must be only one of portrait then? The lens doesn't care what the subject is. It only cares how the photographer uses it.

 

[photo1x1.com]

I just remembered that I did a shooting for our photocourse recently to show the difference between focal lengths in regard to bokeh. It took me a while to figure out how to create an animated gif to show you the exact difference.
It might not be the best example, because the background behind the head changes from white sky to dark trees, but it does show what I was talking about earlier in regard to nose/ear emphasis. In my opinion there is no one perfect focal length for portraiture.
PLUS: look at the difference in the background. I know if you want a portrait only, you don´t want much to distract, but then you can go into the studio. If you shoot outside, you may want to have the environment in the frame (without distracting too much), and that is why 50mm lenses have become pretty popular for portraits lately.
Camera is full frame, and the 55 is no typo btw, it´s a sony .

 

[photo1x1.com]

Let me give you a crop of that amazing 55mm, f1.8
it is shot wide open .

and another example for how well a 50mm works for kids portraits:

and the crop (don´t look at the exif - I accidentally shot this image in jpg-mode, I have NO idea why):

 

[Vtec44]

I sold mine after ~ 100.000+ clicks because it was not adequate for HiRes (very good on the D3 though) and got myself the 1.8/50G ... much better. Now I am waiting for a used 1.4/58G to replace it.

I shoot it with my D800 almost every weekend. The lens has a lot of imperfections, but I love using it over other more expensive lenses.

 

[Tbehl1214]

It would be nice if we could see where the focus was. I could not read the EXIF data either.

Maybe try an uncompressed JPG file.

Or if someone wants to see the Raw file, you can send it via e-mail or put it in dropbox or some site that supports full size raw files.

 

[Tbehl1214]

It would be nice if we could see where the focus was. I could not read the EXIF data either.

Maybe try an uncompressed JPG file.

Or if someone wants to see the Raw file, you can send it via e-mail or put it in dropbox or some site that supports full size raw files.

I couldn't figure out how to transfer that data onto here so I wrote out the info for the first photo. I can do the others too, but wasn't sure what is the most helpful information.

 

[Frank F.]

photo 1x1: very interesting to test the theoretical predictions against real world examples.

In your pictures (I took the freedom to crop them to H&S for better comparsion) I see the forehead and the chin stand out more in the 55mm shot, while the girl looks more skinny all together in the 200mm shot. I have trouble to see a nose/ear relationship though...

 

[photo1x1.com]

photo 1x1: very interesting to test the theoretical predictions against real world examples.

In your pictures (I took the freedom to crop them to H&S for better comparsion) I see the forehead and the chin stand out more in the 55mm shot, while the girl looks more skinny all together in the 200mm shot. I have trouble to see a nose/ear relationship though...

View attachment 129484

You are right, I should be able to do better . So I carefully alligned the faces of the two images and here is the result:
I see: forehead, eyes, nose, mouth and chin stand out, and the ears are less pronounced in the 55mm (in fact they are really smaller on both sides, even though she turns her head very slightly to one side).
It would be better to compare that in studio on white. Maybe I´ll do that on my own face soon . I have a big nose and small ears, and a bald head, that should prove the point in the opposite way .