Portraits on a Crop Body

[kirbym2]

Hi All,

I've got a Nikkor 50mm 1.4, and and 85mm 1.4. What do you think is the better lens to use for portraits on a D7000? Would you choose neither and go with a 70-200mm instead? Doing some couple shots this weekend, was hoping for some advice.

Thanks!

 

[Robin Usagani]

if you have the room or outdoor, go with 85.

 

[Big Mike]

What do you think is the better lens to use for portraits

The real question is what do YOU think is better?

You could easily shoot portraits with any of the lenses mentioned, but one or another might be better, based on how much room you have to shoot and the framing that you want for your shots.

A common philosophy is to shoot portraits with longer lenses because it tends to 'compress' the way people look. As opposed to shooting with a short/wide lens, which tends to accentuate distance and introduce distortion.

Of course, you probably don't want to shoot portraits with a really long lens, because you'd have to be quite far away to include more than a head in the photo.

 

[kirbym2]

I'm doing the shot outdoors, so I'm leaning to the 85mm. At the risk of coming off like a moron, when using a longer prime like this, what distance would I want to be from the subject to get the entire body in the shot? Are we talking 10 ft, 20 ft? I know I'll have some room to move, just not sure how much.

Thanks!

 

[Geaux]

If you have the room to move around, why not just find out when you get there? lol

In my experience with my 85mm, its like 15-30 ft away I guess.

 

[Patrice]

The nikon web site states the 85 mm lens as having a 18 degree 50 minute angle of view on a dx format sensor. Call it 19 degrees and use your grade 10 math to figure out how far a 6 foot person needs to be to fit inside the 19 degrees. You'll need to figure out if the 19 degrees is in landscape or portrait orientation. Use your grade 10 math to set up a test to figure this out. It's not hard if you think about it.

 

[Big Mike]

That's something that will be immediately apparent when you hold the camera up to your eye.

But as I'm in a good mood, I used a FOV calculator Field Of View Calculator to determine that on your camera with an 85mm lens.

So if you turn the camera to vertical orientation, you would have to be 22.5 feet away, to get the whole body of a person who is 6 feet tall. Your model may not be that tall, but you probably won't want to frame them exactly head to toe, so you'll likely have to be farther away.

 

[Big Mike]

The nikon web site states the 85 mm lens as having a 18 degree 50 minute angle of view on a dx format sensor. Call it 19 degrees and use your grade 10 math to figure out how far a 6 foot person needs to be to fit inside the 19 degrees. You'll need to figure out if the 19 degrees is in landscape or portrait orientation. Use your grade 10 math to set up a test to figure this out. It's not hard if you think about it.

I used the FOV calculator and it gave me 15 degrees 48' 29" for that camera/lens combo. I'd guess the Nikon site is better to believe, but who knows...

 

[jake337]

Bring the 50, 85 and the 70-200mm. Maybe take multiple photos in with multiple poses with each lens from 10-15 feet from your subject and see how your subject fills the frame with each respective focal length.

 

[DiskoJoe]

what jake said

 

[kirbym2]

A Field of View Calculator - Who knew?

Sincerely appreciate the insight. Honestly, I will likely play around with a couple of lenses to see the best result. I have a terrible habit of taking portraits from the waist up - vertical orientation or otherwise. I want to make a conscious effort to get out of that trap and take shots that include legs.

I had a feeling I'd get a little flack for asking about the distance thing... thanks for not giving me a hard time

 

[Derrel]

I own a lot of lenses in F-mount. I myself would choose a 70-200mm f/2.8 VR Nikkor over any 85mm Nikkor for portraiture. Why? All the various lens lengths, and all the various background angles of view, and the simple versatility of the zoom over any prime lens. Nikon's "pro" 85mm lenses have always been great fashion and portrait lenses, but they are also one single focal length. On APS-C, 85mm is too long in many scenarios...85mm is simply too long a focal length when the outer edges of the image circle are simply not captured...indoors in many smaller rooms, an 85mm lens is just tooooooooo looooooong. The 70-200 gets rid of that problem. Outdoors, the 70-200mm zooms also make up for the 85mm's single focal length.