Portrait Focal Length...

Timster · May 27, 2012

I was hoping that those of you with more experience could help me out here:

I was reading an article on this site Portrait Lenses and he was saying that the ideal for taking head and shoulder type portraits, an area I am interested in, is to take them from 15ft away with something between a 200mm-300mm FL.

He is talking about how the face changes the closer you get, i.e. the nose gets bigger and the ears smaller...

As I do not seem to be able to ask the question of the author I thought I would ask it here.

15ft is quite a long distance to be away and is not always convenient. Can you use a 100mm to 150mm at 7.5ft and get the same result?? Does it work like that?

The one lens I have that will go to 215mm equivalent will put me at f5.6. I have a 50mm prime at f1.8 and a 18mm-50mm f2.8 (my favourite lens). Are my larger aperture lenses not any good for this sort of photography?

Lots of questions I know, try living in my head for a day...

Timster

fokker · May 27, 2012

Portrait focal length is a bit of a personal preference, and when into telephoto range focal lengths (really anything above 50mm), it's more about convenience. 135mm is considered a classic portrait focal length, but it depends on where you are working. In a close-quarters indoor setting, you might only be able to get away with 85mm, which is still fine.

Generally speaking though, yes the longer the focal length the more 'flattering' the portrait is going to be.

If you are outside and can't control the background then a large aperture to blur the bg is going to be useful, however if you are indoors with a controlled backdrop and lighting you will usually be shooting around f/8 - f/11 anyway.

Timster · May 27, 2012

Thanks for your reply, fokker, do you think f5.6, at 215mm equivalent, is enough to get a nice DOF and bokeh on the background? I haven't taken any portraits with those settings and my sometimes reluctant spouse model is not here this weekend...

kundalini · May 27, 2012

For portraits, I think f/5.6 is a good starting point for aperture. Even at f/5.6, with the proper distances from camera-to-subject and subject-to-background, you should be able to acheive decent to very good isolation of subject to background. The longer focal lengths were given because of the compression these will give (subject to background) which is sought after. 50mm is considered as a normal Field of View as seen by the human eye. A 35mm lens on a cropped body is an approximate equivalent.

Sw1tchFX · May 27, 2012

I laugh at people who think that portraits are some scientific equation you have to solve saying "you have to shoot them with a 135mm at f/5.6 for enough depth of field to get both eyes, ears, and nose in focus."

LOL just shoot whatever the hell you want, you'll make it work. I've shot some of my favorite portraits on a 50mm and 24mm and full frame, or an 80mm on 645. The 24mm is hardly "traditional" or "correct" FL's for shooting portraits.