need an advice for lenses

[alrousan90]

hello
I want to ask about something and what could be a better place than where experts meet !

i own canon 650D /t4i with a cropped sensor
i am interested in portrait photography , and i own 2 lenses :
50mm f1.8 ii
and 18-135 stm (which i liked) .
the results of my work are sort of fine but only with chest-face photography but when it comes to full-body and groups photography it's unsatisfying with blurred-backgrounds (separation).
my question is :
i want to buy a general -proposed lens used professionally in all kinds of portrait / weddings . ( a lens that i never switch /not a prime )

may i ask for some suggestions to help me with this matter .
thank you . .

 

[spiralout462]

Well the Canon 85f1.8 is the default portrait lens. A Canon 24-70 2.8 and 70-200 2.8 are the workhorse lenses of the pros. The large aperture zooms can get pricy so you might consider third party options from Sigma or Tamron.

 

[jaomul]

For a crop, full body shot at a small distance your probably looking at 30mm range. This is where full frames excel. An 85mm lens will put you way back for a full body shot on your camera, its a nice lens but not for the purpose you ask.

Your best option is probably a fast standard zoom like canons own 17-55 IS f2.8 or alternatively the cheaper (almost as good) sigma 17-50mm f2.8 OS

 

[Solarflare]

hello
I want to ask about something and what could be a better place than where experts meet !

i own canon 650D /t4i with a cropped sensor
i am interested in portrait photography , and i own 2 lenses :
50mm f1.8 ii
and 18-135 stm (which i liked) .
the results of my work are sort of fine but only with chest-face photography but when it comes to full-body and groups photography it's unsatisfying with blurred-backgrounds (separation).
my question is :
i want to buy a general -proposed lens used professionally in all kinds of portrait / weddings . ( a lens that i never switch /not a prime )

I really dont get what you wanted to say with "but when it comes to full-body and groups photography it's unsatisfying with blurred-backgrounds".

You cannot have blurred background with wide angle unless you use brenzier (taking many photos with a telephoto, then stiching them together in the computer to get a single wide angle photo, basically the same as a panorama except its specifically used to get extremely shallow depth of field in a wide angle shot). Brenzier obviously requires your subject to sit absolutely still for a while, until you have finished taking all photographs.

Otherwise you would need something absurd like a f0.7 lens, or use a large format camera.

You cannot have a (strongly) blurred background with a goup shot because then only parts of the group would be in focus. I guess you could work with focus stacking here but unfortunately again the group would have to sit absolutely still for a while until you have taken all photos. I never heard anyone actually do that, but theoretically it would be possible, and it would indeed allow to have a group in sharp focus while the background is still strongly blurred.

Well... and I guess you could combine brenzier and focus stacking, haha. That would allow a group in full sharp focus while the background melts away.

But in general, people just use wide angle and small apertures, to get lots of depth of field, enough to get a whole group of people in sharp focus.



I will assume you wanted to say "general purpose". There is no such thing as a general purpose lens. Thats why the ability of switching lenses is so important.

All lenses are compromises. Everything you do has a price. Specifically having any sort of zoom range is actually very pricey, thats why all decent zooms are only 2x or 3x zoom, and are still much bigger and darker than prime lenses. You also lose image quality. The best lenses are always prime lenses, though the best zooms can get pretty close and weaker primes can be worse than really good zooms.

Either way I have no clue what kind of lens you would want, anyway. Your lens selection seems to be quite fine already. If you never want to switch, well then keep the 18-135mm on the camera and sell the 50mm. Having only a single zoom lens with a long focal range isnt general purpose either, though, its sacificing image quality and brightness, possibly also autofocus performance, for convenience.

Or maybe you simply want something like a 17-50mm f2.8 ? You would lose some telephoto, obviously, but you still would have sufficient telephoto for portraiture. And more aperture would allow more flexibility.



Just like with Nikon, the Canon selection of lenses with crop sensors are unsatisfying. This is especially true when you need good low light performance or want shallow depth of field for portrait photography.

Many professionals definitely use prime lenses for the purposes you described. Especially for portraiture, for which a single bright 85mm on full frame might perfectly suffice. Or maybe a 105mm, or even 135mm. Reframing is then done by moving the camera, not by zooming. Though taking a full body shot with a 105mm or even 135mm is really tricky, thats why 85mm is usually considered the most flexible of the portrait lenses, since it allows full body shots at about 5 meter distance, depending upon how tall the person in question is.

For weddings, professionals often use multiple bodies, so they can use bright primes (typically 35mm plus 85mm around f1.4) or small range high quality zooms with (for zooms) bright f2.8 maximum apertures (typically 24-70mm plus 70-200mm), important because weddings often happen in quite low light with no flash allowed and thus having bright lenses and full frame bodies that can handle high ISOs well is really helpful. But it depends upon your style. For example some wedding shooters do reporter/documentary style wedding shooting, with a single 28mm or 35mm lens, just like reporters of old had them, before the age of zooms.

Well, I guess its safe to assume that at this point I started ranting and stopped actually answering your question.

 

[dennybeall]

On a crop sensor camera the 50mm is like an 85mm on a full sensor so that's your portrait lens. A good general purpose lens is something like an 18-140mm which gives you a lot of options in one lens. You'll almost always get better picture with a prime lens but no flexibility. The blurred backgrounds are depth of field issues and as much related to the f-stop setting as the lens.

 

[beagle100]

hello
I want to ask about something and what could be a better place than where experts meet !

i own canon 650D /t4i with a cropped sensor
i am interested in portrait photography , and i own 2 lenses :
50mm f1.8 ii
and 18-135 stm (which i liked) .
the results of my work are sort of fine but only with chest-face photography but when it comes to full-body and groups photography it's unsatisfying with blurred-backgrounds (separation).
my question is :
i want to buy a general -proposed lens used professionally in all kinds of portrait / weddings . ( a lens that i never switch /not a prime )

may i ask for some suggestions to help me with this matter .
thank you . .

if you want more background blur you will need to go longer and larger
depending on your budget look at the 85mm 1.8, 100 2.8, 200mm 2.0, etc