Which lens for portrait work?

[beachbum2277]

Canon 28mm/1.8 or Sigma 30mm/1.4

I'm looking for a lens to do portrait work on my 1.6 crop camera. What do you think? Anyone with experience with both of these lenses?

[Psychic1]

Personally, I think both are too short and your 50-1.8 might be better suited for the task. I use the 135L on the 5D at F4 when doing Corporate portrait work, and for that reason I'd recommend the 85-1.8 or the 85L. The 75-300 would also work.
I shoot F4 because it's corporate, at f2 -you get blurry ears. Practice, practice, practice.

[splitfyre]

85 1.8 on a crop body is great for head shots, while the 50 1.4 is great for 3/4 length portrait work on a crop.

[liza]

Originally Posted by splitfyre

85 1.8 on a crop body is great for head shots, while the 50 1.4 is great for 3/4 length portrait work on a crop.

Excellent advice. The 24-70L is also a great portrait lens.

[morehtml]

On a 1.6 crop the 50 f/1.4 or 85 1.8 will do fine. 35mm or less is fairly wide except for full body shots.

[Pasukun]

For the shoulder and above shot, 85.8 is the gem to use.

[cdifoto]

Originally Posted by liza

Excellent advice. The 24-70L is also a great portrait lens.

Agreed. I ditched my primes. Might buy 'em again for lowlight stuff, but the 24-70L makes them redundant for portraits. 30mm is too short unless you're doing an intentionally distorted perspective shot and/or on a small space with your subject with no room to back up.

[steved110]

28mm and 30mm are too short for portrait use unless you are quite far from the subject - they are both wide angle lenses and this is unaffected by the crop dfactor - so if you are close to the subject things like noses, chins and hands look huge - thus very unflattering.

They make good group portrait lenses however.

In the main for a crop camera the best choices are 50mm, 85mm and 100mm if you have a little room.

For film/ full frame, the 85mm, 100mm and 135mm are the most popular lenses. These lenses actually flatten the perspective, and give the most pleasing proportions to facial features.

I actually use my 70-200 f/4 as my first choice portrait lens - it produces stunning results, especially outdoors or with flash.

[digitaljoe]

24-70 - all the way - My moneymaker lens!

[poah]

used the 30mm sigma and its fine. distortion depends on how close you go in.

the FL you get depends on how far away you can get from the subject lol zooms are good and you'll not normally be shooting wide open as you'll not get enough DOF.

[SkipD]

Originally Posted by steved110

28mm and 30mm are too short for portrait use unless you are quite far from the subject - they are both wide angle lenses and this is unaffected by the crop dfactor - so if you are close to the subject things like noses, chins and hands look huge - thus very unflattering.

They make good group portrait lenses however.

In the main for a crop camera the best choices are 50mm, 85mm and 100mm if you have a little room.

For film/ full frame, the 85mm, 100mm and 135mm are the most popular lenses. These lenses actually flatten the perspective, and give the most pleasing proportions to facial features.

I actually use my 70-200 f/4 as my first choice portrait lens - it produces stunning results, especially outdoors or with flash.

While the focal length recommendations in this post are right on the money, there is a misunderstanding that I think needs clearing up. That is the myth that different focal lengths have perspective characteristics associated with them.

No focal length has any perspective characteristic associated with it. Longer lenses do not "flatten" perspective, for example, any more than shorter lenses do - at least not by themselves.

Perspective is totally controlled by the distance between the viewer (or the camera) and the subject. If you are too close to the subject, then a nose will look larger relative to the rest of the face than if you are further away. If you move further away, the perspective becomes more pleasing. However, this has nothing to do with the chosen focal length except for the fact that most folks choose a focal length and THEN choose the distance to the subject to fill the frame. At the same camera-to-subject distance, all lenses ("fisheye" and other specialty lenses excepted) will provide precisely the same perspective. The only difference will be how much of the frame is filled with the subject.

This can be proven easily with this experiment:

1) Set your camera up on a tripod in front of a subject that has objects that are at various distances from the camera. Establish a distance that would let you take a photo including the nearest and the furthest objects with a long lens.

2) Take a series of photos with various focal lengths including a wide-angle lens. DO NOT MOVE THE CAMERA between shots.

3) Now, print the image taken with the longest lens.

4) Crop the rest of the images so that all of them show precisely the same amount of the subject as the shot taken with the longest lens in the series.

5) Print all of the images.

6) You will see that the perspective with all the shots (relationship of sizes between near and far objects) is identical.

[Psychic1]

[quote=No focal length has any perspective characteristic associated with it. Longer lenses do not "flatten" perspective, for example, any more than shorter lenses do - at least not by themselves.[/quote]

Well said, Thank you for correcting that myth.

[ken_vs_ryu]

you can do half body shots with the 28 and 30 with a crop.

[Wilt]

I agree with what SkipD posted...a focal length has no inherent perspective; perspective is controlled by camera position. Real examples from experience...

...I do not like group photos at weddings with a 40mm lens on 645 medium format SLR because of perspective exaggerating bellies and butts on people who are closer to the lens than people who are farther away...86 degree angle of view on the lens which gives a 7.7x10' area of view at subject distance of 7'.
...I do not like group photos at weddings with a 24mm lens on 35mm SLR because of perspective exaggerating bellies and butts on people who are closer to the lens than people who are farther away...84 degree angle of view on the lens which gives a 6.9x10.4' area of view at subject distance of 7'.

...I do not like group photos at weddings with a 15mm lens on APS-C dSLR because of perspective exaggerating bellies and butts on people who are closer to the lens than people who are farther away...84 degree angle of view on the lens which gives a 7.9x10.4' area of view at subject distance of 7'.

What is in common with all of the above examples is the 7' shooting distance for groups, and the fact that the bride's mother who is 5' away will have her posterior size made apparently bigger than her portly husband with the beer belly standing 7' away.

[angryhampster]

Anything between 30-100mm on a crop camera with a wider aperture than f/4.

That gives you a lot of options. There is no "best" portrait lens. It's all about how you use it. I've seen stunning portraits from a 300-800mm Sigma before...AT 800mm!