Lens Question

[nickstanley]

So I have a question. I am doing two photoshoots soon. One with a 9 year old. And one with an adult. I have an 18-55 kit lens and a 35mm fixed lens. Will these produce good, professional looking photos? Or should I invest in a telephoto lens? I seem to remember in my first class a year ago that a telephoto lens is preferred for these types of shoots.

Thanks

 

[KmH]

Professional looking photos is about the lighting, the posing, and the attention to the details.
So photographer experience and knowledge is the major contributor to what makes a photo look like it was made by a professional.

Telephoto lenses have a narrow field-of-view so there is less background that can steal attention away from the subject.
If a shallow depth-of-field is used to blur the background, a telephoto lens magnifies background elements, more than a shorter focal length, making them seem even more blurred.

The 35 mm prime lens likely can deliver a shallower DoF (and somewhat better optical quality) than the 18-55 lens can when zoomed to 35 mm, but the DoF can get so shallow with a 35 mm prime that if the photographer does not have a very good understanding of how to control DoF they can have difficulty controlling what is and isn't in focus.

 

[Dao]

One additional note is with a telephoto lens, the camera is usually further away from the subject. And because of that, the ratio of the distance between the front of the subject to the camera and the distance between the back of the subject to the camera is close to 1:1. As a result, effect of perspective distortion is less with a telephoto lens.

 

[KmH]

Good point.

I didn't get into how using a 35 mm lens to achieve a shallow DoF means using a point of focus quite close to s person.
Being close does 2 things:
1. It increases the chances a person's features will be distorted by the short focal length.
2. It puts the photographer cole to or inside a person's personal space and makes them uneasy/tense which shows in the images.