Best portraiture lenses...GO!

Just looking for opinions

Depends on the kind of portraiture, studio or location. But 200f2L, 135L, 85L, 85 1.8, sigma 85 1.4.

Heya,

Depends on what you want it to look like.

If you're in a studio with controlled lighting, any lens greater than 50mm will simply do the job and there's really no difference between a decent piece of glass and the best glass in this setting. Lighting is more important here. You don't need a sharpness so cutting that zits look like growths and wrinkles look like they were etched in with an exacto. I'm splitting hairs obviously but you get the idea. Even cheap glass at F8 in a studio setup with lighting will be very sharp and more than enough for this.

Environmental and location, well, again comes down to preference. It may be natural light or not. You may want isolation, or you want context. This changes what lens and what aperture and what lighting if any you use.

Focal length effects distance to subject, therefore it effects distortion and depth of field. So what you choose here is based on those properties that you desire, and what you're willing to accept as compromise.

There's no best.

What's more important is composition & lighting. Even a piece of junk lens can produce a wall-worthy portrait if the image evokes thought or emotion or has dramatic and well controlled light.

++++++++++

My favorite portrait lens is probably my Samyang 85 F1.4. I like manual glass for portraits. I can more accurately focus in any light short of straight darkness, without worry of AF points used, etc, and I can more accurately land my F1.4 shots this way than the camera's AF does (at least my cameras). My close second is my 200 F2.8L when I want autofocus and when I want more depth of field while keeping great isolation. And my fun one is probably my Helios 44-2 when I want some crazy busy bokeh for fun.

Very best,

The answer is quite simple:

85L
135L

Cheers,
Bryan

135L if you have the room.

Best? ef 200mm f/1.8? Best within a specific budget is another story. I am assuming you will be mounting this lens on your T3i, correct?

The 60mm f/2.8 macro will make an excellent portrait lens on that camera. In the same price range you can also use the 50mm f/1.4 (lots faster), the 85 f/1.8, 100 f/2 for single portraits. For group and environmental shots, the 28 f/1.8 and 35 f/2 (IS or not) are all very nice.

Summary: There is no 'best' lens. There are lots of better-suited lenses. It all comes down to what you are trying to do, and your budget.

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=58577

For me there are four of them, depending on a budget:

35 f/2 IS
50 f/1.8
50 f/1.2L
TS-E 90 f/2.8.

Cheers.

24-105L - for running jumping kids...

I think it all depends on your needs and what look you like. As someone said, crappy lens with great light beats any L lens with crappy lighting any day.

Anything long and sharp!!!!! Seriously. A plain old 70-200 f4L at the long end is amazing.

50mm 1.2L, just take a step forward!

And you can use that lens for non-portraits too!

britinjapan wrote in post #17267958
50mm 1.2L, just take a step forward!

And you can use that lens for non-portraits too!

Taking a step forwsrd csn induce unflattering perspective distortion. 50 os okay on a crop camera but not great gor traditional portraits on full frame

18-300mm shooting at f8

For studio portraits, I agree with MalVeauX that any focal length over 50mm (35mm equivalent) will work. I use the lowly 18-55mm@55mm @f/8 with monolights and get great results.

For portraits where you need to blow out the background, the biggest hand-holdable long prime would be the best. I'd pick the 200mm f/2 or 300mm f/2.8 (or the slower versions of these if they're too heavy).

135L