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| Lenses for portrait photography |
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molja |
 Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:37 pm Post subject: Lenses for portrait photography |
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Joined: 18 Aug 2006
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| Eugene |
| Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 5:00 am Post subject: |
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King
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| ckurz7000 |
| Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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Joined: 02 Jan 2008
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Personally, I don't find the article in the blog overly helpful -- but that's just me. Here's my approach:
I try not to use a zoom lense, particularly not one of the kit zooms that are packaged with the camera body. Most affordable zooms are a compromise between size, zoom range, speed (minimum f-stop) and price. When doing a portrait I usually want the subject at the center of attention and don't want a distracting background. For this reason I usually open up the aperture (small f-number) all the way, which decreases the DOF and dips the background into blurry oblivion. The kit zoom that came with my Nikon D80 is a 18-135mm/3.5-5.6 lense. That means at a medium focal length (say about 50 mm) it has a minimum aperture of 4.5. My Sigma 50mm/2.8 prime lense is about 4 times quicker (f-stop 2.8 vs. 4.5). That allows me to shoot with an aperture of 2.8 and have the background nice and blurry so as to set off my subject against it. Another advantage of the 2.8 speed is that I can still use available light when other photographers with slower lenses (those kit zooms :-) are already scrounging for their flashes or fling their curses around for not having brought a tripod.
Also and almost as importantly, the 50mm prime lense will give you much sharper pictures wich less chromatic aberration (color fringing) and less distortion. What good is a 10 megapixel camera where the resolution is limited by the lense rather than by the sensor?
So, there you are: My recommendation is to go for a fast, prime lense with a focal length between 50-90mm and a speed of at least 2.8. Toss the zoom. Most people think that the zoom ring on their lenses is there to save them from walking to and fro. That's totally wrong!
Someone suggested to me once to buy a camera body and a single prime lense in the 28-50mm range (for DSLRs). Then he told me to take a lot of photographs and use my legs instead of the zoom. Thereby I was to discover the specific quality of this focal length. Once I knew how 50mm felt, he suggested to go for another prime lense -- either a wide angle (18mm) or a tele (90mm). And only after I had mastered those three lenses would he recommend that I buy a zoom lense.
I followed his advice (it was my father, after all) and have not been sorry for it.
Best wishes, -- Chris. |
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