Portrait Photography? What is your favorite lens?

[bittybows]

Hello. I have been doing photography of my kids simply as a hobby, and will soon be purchasing a new lens, as well as a new camera body. I am primarily interested in something that will take great outdoor shots, especially portrait type.

I am considering a 50mm f1.4 and an 85mm f1.4, but am not sure if I am overlooking something that would work better?

I currently shoot with a Nikon D50. I will replacing this in a few months, and for this reason I am considering both Nikon and Canon. (I don't have much else Nikon equipment to necessarily hold me to Nikon.)

If you primarily do portrait photography, children, or weddings, will you please tell me your absolute favorite lens? Thanks!!

 

[PattiS]

85mm f1.4

 

[thebeatles]

I am a canon user and love my 85mm f/1.8 for head shots. I think the 50mm might be more versatile though. It's pretty darn difficult to get a full body shot and extremely difficult to get a group shot when I use the 85mm.

 

[Derrel]

70-200mm f/2.8 gives the most versatility, and the top models from both Canon and Nikon have excellent bokeh. I do not think there is a 50mm lens made by Canon or Nikon that has truly fine bokeh. As far as it goes, I don't think there are any Canon or Nikon 50mm lenses that have anywhere near the bokeh quality of say the 85/1.4 AF-D or the 105 DC from Nikon.

 

[usayit]

i've done a few sessions with young kids (nothing professional.. ) and I found it difficult to expect kids to hold a pose or focus for any length of time. Often the best photos came outside doing what children do best.. playing.

I much prefer a fast 80ish focal length for portraiture. Canon 85mm f/1.8 coming into mind.

With kids, I found it necessary to have the flexibility of a zoom (and knee pads). With that, I agree with Darrel. My ol'Tamron 35-105 f/2.8 asph. and 70-200 f/2.8L IS came in very useful. This was also true for indoor/studio shots as well.

 

[Big Mike]

I'll also agree with Derrel.

My favorite lens for portraits is my 70-200mm F2.8 L IS.

 

[bittybows]

85mm f1.4

Thanks Patti, and I love your site and photos! Those are the types of shots I am wanting to aspire to, with the detail and softness you show. If you don't mind my asking, do you usually use multiple lenses for an outdoor shoot?

I am a canon user and love my 85mm f/1.8 for head shots. I think the 50mm might be more versatile though. It's pretty darn difficult to get a full body shot and extremely difficult to get a group shot when I use the 85mm.

Good point. Hmmmm.

70-200mm f/2.8 gives the most versatility, and the top models from both Canon and Nikon have excellent bokeh. I do not think there is a 50mm lens made by Canon or Nikon that has truly fine bokeh. As far as it goes, I don't think there are any Canon or Nikon 50mm lenses that have anywhere near the bokeh quality of say the 85/1.4 AF-D or the 105 DC from Nikon.

Interesting. I never would have thought about this lens! So, do you think that this lens accomplishes better bokeh than an 85mm f1.4? If so, can you explain the logistics of it, or point me to a place that I could read up for better understanding? I am definitely wanting something that will significantly soften the background. However, I also want something that will be great for indoor and low light.

i've done a few sessions with young kids (nothing professional.. ) and I found it difficult to expect kids to hold a pose or focus for any length of time. Often the best photos came outside doing what children do best.. playing.

I much prefer a fast 80ish focal length for portraiture. Canon 85mm f/1.8 coming into mind.

With kids, I found it necessary to have the flexibility of a zoom (and knee pads). With that, I agree with Darrel. My ol'Tamron 35-105 f/2.8 asph. and 70-200 f/2.8L IS came in very useful. This was also true for indoor/studio shots as well.

Yeah, I don't usually try to pose my kids, but just want to capture their playfulness and energy! To me, that is cuter and more realistic than a posed shot in a studio.

 

[Iron Flatline]

80mm f/1.2 Leica R Sumilux, adapted for Canon EOS mount on 5D.

 

[Derrel]

Interesting. I never would have thought about this lens! So, do you think that this lens accomplishes better bokeh than an 85mm f1.4? If so, can you explain the logistics of it, or point me to a place that I could read up for better understanding? I am definitely wanting something that will significantly soften the background. However, I also want something that will be great for indoor and low light.

I think Nikon's 70-200 VR (the original lens, optimized for DX) has superb bokeh on natural-world scenes, and on DX, it delivers round OOF highlights and not the cat's eye or football-shaped ones that some other brands create because the 70-200 VR lens does not suffer from mechanical or optical peripheral light fall-off on DX format. The advantage the 70-200 Nikkor has is a rounded diaphragm and a design that deliberately emphasizes bokeh quality; this is something that was missing with the older 80-200 generation lenses, and is also lacking from Sigma's 70-200 EX lenses.

What the 84 1.4 AF-D, Nikon's so-called "Cream Machine" offers is superb bokeh, but only at one focal length--85mm, dropping to 77mm at the point of maximum close focus, but at a true, full f/1.4. What the 85 1.4 AF-D offers though is a choice of blur effects that's quite wide: at f/1.4 there is a dreamy, visible softening and lowered contrast and ultra-shallow DOF; stopped down to f/2 and the images are a bit sharper with higher contrast, but still not optimally contrasty and sharp. At f/2.8 the 85 1.4 produces a lovely image, with shallow depth of field. The lens peaks at around f/4.8 to f/5.6, where the corners come into about equal sharpness with the extreme edges. At its widest apertures, the lens has a really sharp, fully-illuminated center, but softer edges,with lower resolution and lower contrast and some light fall-off, which actually looks good on portraits. You can basically "choose your sharpness" by shooting at f/1.4, or f/2 or f/2.8 or f/3.5 or f/4.5. If you want a dreamy look, you can shoot pretty wide-open. If you want biting crispness, you can shoot at f/4.5.

But, the advantages of a 70-200 lens with stabilizer are that you can shoot at a multitude of focal lengths, and framings, and at MANY camera-to-subject distances. The stabilization helps stop wind buffeting, slight camera shake, and helps if you are slightly out of breath, or when your muscles get fatigued after a long session with lots of up and down, kneeling,walking, crouching,etc. If you want to read up on lenses, dPreview's lens talk forums have loads of people who love to discuss various lenses and who appreciate the differences. Various prime lenses create a "look" or "impression" or a "signature". Nikon's original 70-200 VR and Canon's 70-200 2.8 L-IS USM both have quite good bokeh AND really nice image quality across many lengths, and are just more-versatile than an 85mm lens--even a superb 85, which both Canon and Nikon offer.

 

[IgsEMT]

I like my 28-105 Nikon.

 

[TJ K]

I think the 70-200 2.8 is great for it. Also it seems like the 85 1.4 is also excellent.
TJ

 

[Iron Flatline]

Bokeh... wouldn't that be a secondary consideration when purchasing a lens for portraits? Wouldn't sharpness (or the absence of harshness), contrast, and color rendering be a lot more important?

 

[Derrel]

Bokeh... wouldn't that be a secondary consideration when purchasing a lens for portraits? Wouldn't sharpness (or the absence of harshness), contrast, and color rendering be a lot more important?

Not for me--bokeh is a primary concern. All modern lenses have adequate sharpness for portraiture, and also anything that is multicoated and made since 1955 has adequate contrast. In fact, excessive contrast and excessively HIGH saturation actually work against the photographer shooting digital portraiture. A lens with a bit lower contrast is a good thing on a digital sensor, since it's super-easy to boost contrast in post. With slightly lower overall contrast, skin tones are rendered in a very flattering manner; this is the secret underlying Nikon's 105 and 135 Defocus Control lenses, which do not have the uber-high contrast of say, the new 105mm VR Nikkor or the new 60 AF-S G Micro-Nikkor.

The very-newest Nikkor lenses seem to be emphasizing high contrast and super-rich color rendition, like in the Micro-Nikkor lenses, and that tends to reveal every flaw in skin, clothes, hair,and makeup. I personally think also that many lenses which are ultra-sharp have overcorrected spherical aberration, which gives the surface "look" of ultra sharpness, a biting type of sharpness, and a harsh, awful background bokeh. A good example is the Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 Planar--horrific bokeh, extreme sharpness, and high contrast, but an ugly,sterile image.

The color rendition of the lens, if you mean the warmth or coolness of the images--that is a matter of very large consequence to many people, and the strongly yellow cast that Sigma lenses tend to render compared to Nikon glass is a good example; this is another area too where lenses tend to run in "families" and also by "generation". Sigma and Nikon within the same shoot and the same white balance do not mix well,at all.

Of course, these are my opinions. I think that lenses designed in the film era tended to focus more on different image characteristics. Sharpness and contrast often earn a lens a reputation for, well, sharpness and contrast. But those two things are, I think, less important today than they were in say 1940. "Modern" multicoated lenses have gotten better and better and have tended to be corrected to an almost sterile level, but that started to change in the 1990's with the increased emphasis on "bokeh" and highlight rendering and round diaphragms, and Nikon's Defocus Control lenses. Digital sensors are so clean and noise-free now that the slight muting effects of film grain in color negative films and higher-speed B&W films have made it so that a lens that is "too perfect" or "too good" looks very brutal on a modern higher-resolution d-slr. A good example is the Nikon 60mm Micro-Nikkor lenses of the AF-D and newer generation; ultra-high sharpness, ultra flat field, no distortion, high contrast, and high color saturation. But photographs of people made with those lenses look, well, harsh and unflattering.

The polar opposite would be the rendering of the old 58mm f/1.2 Noct-Nikkor; wider open it has veiling glare and a roundness, a softness to its images. Same with the other ultra-speed older Nikkor lenses in the f/1.2 class. ame with the 85 1.4 AF-D at its widest apertures--it is NOT sharo in the corners, and it is NOT even in illumination at the corners when wider open--it has decided fall-off. It is actually sharp in the middle, bright in the middle, soft at the edges due to a bit of field curvature, and slightly low in contrast at f/1.4 to f/2.8. And because of that, it is one of Nikon's most revered portrait lenses--its flaws are what give its images character. And the 60mm Micro-Nikkors have an awful,sterile,perfect correction look that's great when photographing one's stamp collection or dead butterflies for a scientific catalogue project, but dreadful on say a woman of 45 years of age.

Of course these are just my opinions; other people might love the uber-real or hyper-realistic rendering of perfectly corrected lenses. I prefer a more-gentle rendering that is provided by some of the newer lenses designed to offer better background bokeh, even if some rez, or contrast is a result of that decision to optimize more for bokeh and less for other criteria.

 

[SpeedTrap]

I'll also agree with Derrel.

My favorite lens for portraits is my 70-200mm F2.8 L IS.

Agreed, for Portraits my 70-200 F2.8 us my most used lens

 

[bittybows]

Thank you all for your recommendations and advice. I definitely have my work cut out for me when shopping around! Maybe I need to convince my husband that I need more than one lens asap. Wish me luck. : )