Making portraits

[pcouturier]

What type of lens do you suggest to do portraits of persons?

Will have a 75-300mm and a 18-55mm.

Are these good lens to do portraits?
Or what do you suggest?

 

[Village Idiot]

What camera? I could tell you to get an Olympus 35-100 f/2.0, but it wouldn't do you any good for any kind of photography if you have a Sony A100.

 

[pcouturier]

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi

 

[Village Idiot]

There you go.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II. It's $80ish at B&H.

That's probably your best bang for your buck and juding on the camera you own and the lenses you currently have, you're probably not looking for a $600 lens.

Basically unless you're going for a certain stylized look, some what long (50mm = 80mm FoV on the XTI with the 1.6x crop sensor) focal distance with a wide (smaller f/ number) aperture.

Plus if you stop down the 50mm f/1.8, it's amazingly sharp.

After that, learn about lighting. That will make the biggest difference in portait photography.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.htmlhttp://www.strobist.com