Seeking Information

Hello. This is my first post here, and I was seeking a little bit of information. I am currently working on a home studio after doing all my previous work outdoors. Most of my outdoor work has been done with a 85 1.8 prime and a 70-200 2.8 I borrowed from a friend.

Now that I'm setting up a studio in my home, I don't have the freedom of wide open spaces like I did outside. My current space in my home breaks down like this.

The room I'll be using, although 24 feet wide, I'll only be able to use about 15 of it. The ceiling starts from 8 feet and tapers off to 16 feet. I've got enough room to make use of the vaulted celings so that is not a problem. I can come off the wall about 2 feet, and be into the 10 foot ceiling range. However that will cut my width down to 13' wide, which I think will still be ok. However, my distance away from the subject is what may be restricted.

Say I move the subject away from the backdrop 5-6 feet, that leaves me with a max distance I can get the camera from the subject at around 16 feet before I run into my staircase wall.

So my question is this. What lens should I go with in the Tamron line to work this type of distance? Either the 17-50mm or the 28-75 mm. The lense would be used on a 1.6x body.

Any help anyone can provide to me will be much appreciated. Thanks you for taking the time to read my post.

Can you list what you have now , also are you doing Headshots or full body , Single person or Groups if groups how many at most .

David

dpds68 wrote in post #15016233
Can you list what you have now , also are you doing Headshots or full body , Single person or Groups if groups how many at most .

David

What I have now is a 30D body with a 50mm 1.8, 85mm 1.8 and like mentioned in the OP, I borrowed a friends 70-200 2.8. With what I plan on doing is headshots, to 3/4, and some full body if I've got the room. Lighting wise is a 3 light Alienbee set up and I also have several speed lights that I've been doing off camera lighting with for some time now. As for the group, it will mostly be single person to may groups of 4 if I have the room.

I've worked in a space much smaller than that and managed to get full length shots using a 24-70 lens on a full frame camera.

If I were you, I'd see if I could borrow a lens with the general focal length range you're considering, set up a test shooting area approximating what you'll have to work with, and take test shots of a person-sized target (or a person, say a wife, significant other, or friend) and see what you can do with various focal lengths/shooting distances.

stsva wrote in post #15023344
If I were you, I'd see if I could borrow a lens with the general focal length range you're considering, set up a test shooting area approximating what you'll have to work with, and take test shots of a person-sized target (or a person, say a wife, significant other, or friend) and see what you can do with various focal lengths/shooting distances.

I've gotten out my kit lens 18-55 that I forgot to mention and it works great in the space I'm looking at setting up. I'm going to do more test before I take the plunge and buy another lens. Thanks for the information.

travismith wrote in post #15023920
I've gotten out my kit lens 18-55 that I forgot to mention and it works great in the space I'm looking at setting up. I'm going to do more test before I take the plunge and buy another lens. Thanks for the information.

yes, do some tests before buying another lens. But many prefer at least 50mm for portraits to avoid distortion even inside indoors