Portrait Lens Advice

[smoke665]

Definitely cheaper than the Pentax, but if the Pentax 70mm limited is anything like the other limited models it's worth the difference

 

[Rick50]

Interesting video on lens (oops - not sure you shoot Canon):

 

[smoke665]

@Rick50 Many, many years ago I had a Canon, but then I came into the light

 

[Derrel]

You do not need excessive sharpness in a lens for portraits. In fact, too much sharpness can look sterile, hyper-realistic, jarring, and so on. You want a lens that has a nice transition from the in-focus zone to the defocused zone. You want a lens that has nice, smooth background rendering on the types of things you shoot: seamless paper? No problem, ANY lens will do...even 1960's Hasselblad lenses with ugly, 5-sided diaphragms and harsh, hashy bokeh look fine on paper or canvas backgrounds. Sigma ART...high sharpness, but nervous bokeh. Tamron 85mm f/1.8 VC..oh my, harsh bokeh in the foregounds and backdrops on high-frequency detail...bokeh that looks, well, comparatively ugly. SHARP? Yes! Competing with all the other new-fangled uber-sharp 85mm lenses from Sigma, Nikon, and SamyBokiWaliVivtar.

High test chart scores do not really tell how many lenses "render" or "draw" their pictures. There's been a new, 2010's-20-teens lens design idea of making lenses that TEST CHART SCORE really, really high, but which make ugly pictures of people. And as far as usability, the Zeiss Otus...OMG...huuuuge barrels, outrageous prices, lack of in the field ergonomics. Ask the people who have used them. There is a LOT to be said for going SMALL, so the lens is not threatening to the portrait subject, and so the lens actually goes out of the camera bag or equipment locker becuase it is not a big, heavy, fat, PITA lens to carry and shoot. Models and real people often have different in front of camera feelings. Real people typically do NOT like a monster lens pointed at them, and such lenses are counter-productive many times.

The 70mm Limited looks like a 50mm. My experience is that smallness, that profile, is a good thing, like the Nikjn 85mm f/2 I grew up with...looked like a 50/1.4 or a 35/2...small...52mm filter diameter, not 77, not 82. My advice for a portrait lens really is not to worry about its sharpness, but more about getting the right focal length, or lengths. For your needs. Indoors, the longer lengths require a lot more room for half-body or full-length shots. You can almost always move closer, but often can not back up any farther. There's a balance between a flattened face shot with a 200mm, and a too-big-of-a-nose lens like a 50mm. 105mm on FF was considered to be "the perfect" portraiture tele by many people...easy to work with, and a certain "realness", but not "lens-y", not that 200 or 300mm lens-y look. Other people like the 135mm on FX.

There exists out there more than one kind of a "portrait", and more than one kind of a portrait lens. I think less-sharp, prettier-image lenses are better than modern, test-chart-designed lenses that are to be sold over the internet, to gear heads. This is where Sigma's ART series has gone; they have convinced people that "sharpness" means a good lens for every use. And yeah..for stars at night, sure. But when you over-correct the lens to get high scores on resolving closely-spaced, tiny black lines on white paper at 10 feet...that's really not the right test bed for the real world. That leads quite often to hard background bokeh, and ugly out of focus backgrounds, and foliage and fences and cars and trees that sem to "vibrate", and steal attention from the focused zone.

"Definitely cheaper than the Pentax, but if the Pentax 70mm limited is anything like the other limited models it's worth the difference."

 

[Rick50]

Interesting comments Derrel. I'm going to do some bokeh testing on my 85mm, 135mm lens, and 70-200mm lens just to see what I get.

 

[Derrel]

Interesting comments Derrel. I'm going to do some bokeh testing on my 85mm, 135mm lens, and 70-200mm lens just to see what I get.

try some things that really,really SHOW bad bokeh: chain-link fencing, picket fences, shrubs, and light coming in from behind trees or large hedges, etc, and also high-frequency stuff, as well as LOW-frequency, large-ish stuff like playground jungle gyms; poles; cars and vans,etc.

See if the bokeh has double-lining on things like gladiola stalks, or fences, or window frame edgesm, stuff like that. Big problem with some of the old Zeiss designs.

RE: 85mm lenses. Nikon 85mm f/1.8 AF or 1.8 AF-D. The KING of purple fringing on high-contrast things like tree branches, phone lines, edges of things against bright sky. Cheap. Old design. NEWER 85mm 1.8 AF-S G...perhaps THE SHARPEST, highest-testing 85mm lens for high-MP Nikons. Sterile rendering. Extreeeeeeemly good optics, perhaps the best lens under $4,000 from Nikon. VERY sharp edges, even at f/2.2 or f/2.5. Low spherical aberration, very modern, well-corrected, tests out as one of the absolute best primes on 36 MP Nikon D800 or D810.

Buuuut....the real portrait lens is the older, 85mm f/1.4 AF-D Nikkor, also called, "The Cream Machine" back in the early 2000's. Optics? Light fall off at the edges, not that sharp at the edges, much sharper in the central core of the image. At wide apertures, edges are softer than the central zone, by a good bit. IOW, portraits of one or two people look gorgeous, right off the memory card...natural subtle vignetting, softer outer area that does not distract, sharp in the center; spherical aberration has been allowed to remain to a degree, so the OOF areas are freaking gorgeous. Does not "test out" on a test chart like a Rokinon. And yet, it is a spectacular lens for pictures of people.

You might not see much vignetting on "some" lenses. And if you import with lens profiles/corrections applied, you might not see "any" light fall-off at the edges. And with some new cameras, in-camera JPEG will apply vignetting control. On longer tele with narrow angles, light fall-off is often pretty minimal. On APS-C camera, light fall-off is often NOT EVEN there,ever, sicne the lens "sees" only that 29mm dia. circle in the center of the lens's projected image.

 

[Drive-By-Shooter]

see what was # 1? the 50 ART. it really is amazing; color, contrast, sharpness.

i migrated away from using the 'normal' lens decades ago, preferring wider or longer. now, i seem to keep the 50 ART on my D600 most of the time. I've recently started to use it on my wife's D3300 to see how it it works there until i get the 85 ART. the vid says it does well on dx. i'll see.

Interesting video on lens (oops - not sure you shoot Canon):

 

[Rick50]

Here is what I'm trying to do. Well, first off I don't know who Nikon is as I shoot canon and do not get Nikkor talk.
I don't know if you have seen the work of Dylan Patrick but I like his headshot work. I have lots of space around my house so it would be easy for me to get my Sigma 85mm 1.4 or my Canon 135mm 2.0 and copy him.
Here's a video of his stuff.


So Bokeh is key to his images. I have HSS flash using speedlites so no reason I can't make it work. That would mean inside the house I can use 85mm lens and outside use 135mm. This can be done on full frame 5D III or Crop 80D. When I next get some sun I'll get my mannequin head and shoot some with different backgrounds. I did some little testing and already see I need sun lit backgrounds. Should be fun!

 

[Rick50]

see what was # 1? the 50 ART. it really is amazing; color, contrast, sharpness.

i migrated away from using the 'normal' lens decades ago, preferring wider or longer. now, i seem to keep the 50 ART on my D600 most of the time. I've recently started to use it on my wife's D3300 to see how it it works there until i get the 85 ART. the vid says it does well on dx. i'll see.

Interesting video on lens (oops - not sure you shoot Canon):

I have the 35mm Art and it's a great lens too.

 

[jcdeboever]

I can't wait to see the images from the Pentax lens. I have seen samples galore but super interested in smokes rendering. He is a learning machine.

 

[Drive-By-Shooter]

Derrel, thanks for the ton of observations, wisdom, and advice.

I waited until digital was better than film and FX affordable, planning to keep my 90's lenses, but like a pro predicted, I wouldn't be happy with them. With some, I've had seller's remorse because of color, contrast and other aspects that you mention.

You talk about things that I have just started to think about, like DOF transition. Thanks for being here and sharing! ,

Lens presence to subjects is an issue I've pondered recently. A big lens can negatively effect a subject and ruin a candid portrait. My old Nikon 85 1.8 was tiny compared to my 70-200 2.8 which can cause a look of fear (is that a weapon? who hired you?), Younger folks are used to phones. They might not have seen a real camera in person! I don't mind the weight of the 50 ART or the extra weight of the 85 ART, but the 86mm filter size is huge.

Comparison to "gear head" is appropriate. I've always had fast cars; but my 18 yr old BMW, the slowest of them, is my favorite. Likewise, lenses have much more to consider than 0-60 mph times. (Had I known, I would have traded less quickly.) I've studied the lens tests by N-Photo (British mag), which are the best I've seen. They cover enough to narrow it down and test a few for myself. But like a good jazz album, first impressions may not consider the nuances that time can reveal.

 

[Drive-By-Shooter]

this pic is what 'hooked' me on the ART series. getting it used for $800 got me started which, otherwise i would still have my two Tokina f2.8 zooms, 16-28 & 24-70 .
D600 popup flash -.7, left hand held nikon 910 -.03 overall exposure -0.7

 

[Drive-By-Shooter]

this 85 lens is a beast: Sigma_Art_85mm_f1.4_TC_01-1024x768

 

[dcbear78]

Pentax.... Portrait.... How in the hell has the Pentax FA77mm Ltd not been mentioned yet?

Done....

End thread.

It's a magic piece of glass. There is a reason it was voted as the best lens over at Pentax Forums. I've just sold out of my Pentax gear and that lens (and the FA31mm Ltd sibling) actually hurt to sell.

It even looked good just sitting on the shelf.

 

[smoke665]

I read the reviews on it. The 70 is supposedly a little faster on the AF and has quickly shift. Half the price of the 77.