Best prime for pet portrait and some action shots?

Right now I got the 18-55/4.5-5.6 IS II kitlens but I don't like the quality of the picture if gives me. I did own a 70-200/f4 non-IS before and I liked it but got dizzy because of the missing IS in the viewfinder. I have ruled that one out because I will not always shoot with good light.

What is the best prime choice for me? Like I said in the title I like to take portraits and some action shots, I stay rather close to my dog so a zoom will not be necessary.

At what distance? On what body? Indoors? Outdoors? We need way more info.

adamo99 wrote in post #16173082
At what distance? On what body? Indoors? Outdoors? We need way more info.

Oh I'm sorry. Distance is maybe a few meters away? I suck a distance. I own a Chihuahua and I can fill the frame with him when I'm at 55mm on my Canon 60D and I'm not far away from him at all. Maybe a meter or two? Mostly outdoors.

If you are shooting mostly outdoors, I would get the EF 85mm f/1.8- it has very fast focusing, and can keep up with dogs while running, jumping, etc. For portraits, just put some additional distance between yourself and the dog, and you'll be able to fill the frame also.

Are looking to do tight portraits from a few meters? My 85 on my 1DIV(1.3 crop apposed to your 1.6 crop) at a few meters can't quite fill the frame with my Cocker Spaniels and they're quite a bit bigger than a Chihuahua. I'd say on your 60D the 85 would OK for the smaller dog since you want to be close but assuming you took similar shots to what you're looking to do with the 70-200 when you had it, I'd look at what focal lengths you used.

I'd think for action with a Chihuahua even if you stay fairly close you might want to use something like a 135mm. However for action I don't know how close you can really be even with a smaller bread because they can get away pretty quick when running around unless the space is also small. You'd also probably need 135mm to get distortion free Chihuahua head shots.

Then a 100mm would be a nice compromise right in the middle.

I don't think at this time anyone makes primes with IS in med telephoto range out side of marco lenses, which would great for portraits but might be tough for action with their slower AF. My 100L has the focus limit switch which helps a lot with AF speed but I've never tried it for action, I just use the 70-200 or 300 for that.

I guess which focal length really depends on how tight you want the shots since you say you plan on staying fairly close. As mentioned it's hard to stay close for action so if you got something for shooting tight for portraits it would likely be fairly loose for action(still plenty of room crop if wanted).

Just as an example of a fairly tight action shot taken at about 10-15m away(most definitely I had the dogs running much further away than you sound like you plan but this is about as close as they'd get-almost back to the automatic ball throwing machine, you can see his brother's butt in the lower left corner standing next to it) with my 1DIV and 300(would be about 250mm on your 60D) uncropped. I'd guess for a Chihuahua similar framing would require him/her to only be 5-8m.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/83602155@N04/9​004539404/

Well, OP stated that they are filling the frame at just 55mm and are only 1-2m away from subject. To make use of a 85mm or 135mm prime on a crop camera, they would have to add some distance that it sounds like they don't have.

I'd recommend one of the 50mm prime options like the Canon 50mm F/1.4 or Sigma 50mm F/1.4 unless OP is able to get more distance from the dog. The Sigma is notorious for AF issues though and I'm pretty sure the OP does not have MFA.

135 L > all

JohanBorjesson wrote in post #16173087
Mostly outdoors.

SoCalTiger wrote in post #16173635
Well, OP stated that they are filling the frame at just 55mm and are only 1-2m away from subject. To make use of a 85mm or 135mm prime on a crop camera, they would have to add some distance that it sounds like they don't have.

Sounds to me like the OP has plenty of space. Doesn't get more spacious than 'outdoors'.

The 50mm f/1.4 was my go to when shooting our Corgi on the crop body.

85/1.8 is pretty sweet, if the dog is close enough. Even if your framing is loose the cropping power is significant e.g. from this on my 7D....

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135L on crop sensor is actually perfect for small pets outdoors. It's a narrow field of view on that sensor particularly for human or larger subjects.

Only lens I use for my cats is the Leica R 180/2 APO lens at f/2. I tried my EF 135/2 once and was very dissapointed in the results - less keepers, poorer color, working distance too close, overall look not great.