50L – Best F-Stop for Max Sharpness?

I have a little problem. Tomorrow im going to shoot Portraits of my colleagues at work for their curriculum vitae. The problem is, the space where im gonna shoot it is very small so I cant take my portrait wonder, the 135L. I will use the 50L as my 16-35 will give to much distortion.

Another problem is, i cant test it out myself because the camera with my lenses are not at home so i need you to tell me where the 50L is at its sharpest. I guess it will be around f/5.6 or f/4 but a confirmation would be nice

Ty!

Check out this site which shows sharpness throughout the range for a ton of lenses.

Jap f/4 and 5.6 seems the best. Thank you!

Since we're talking about people instead of charts, the DoF is going to make more of a difference than lens sharpness. If you have enough light, F8 or F11 would give sharper results.

If you want blurred backgrounds, and unsharp ear/nose sharpness doesn't matter much, F4 should be good.

jefzor wrote in post #16337607
Since we're talking about people instead of charts, the DoF is going to make more of a difference than lens sharpness. If you have enough light, F8 or F11 would give sharper results.

If you want blurred backgrounds, and unsharp ear/nose sharpness doesn't matter much, F4 should be good.

Okey, so the smaller the aperture, the better?

Well then im going to go as much down as i can

davidfarina wrote in post #16337660
Okey, so the smaller the aperture, the better?

Well then im going to go as much down as i can

Basically, for headshots with a controlled background you will stop down until you either run out of power on the strobes or you reach the onset of diffraction being noticeable. I'd shoot f/11.

The bigger issue is that your space sounds small for headshots if you can only shoot them with a 50mm lens. That means you will be shooting from closer than 2 meters which will appear distorted.

Distortion in portraits is a function of the subject to camera distance, not the focal length selected. If you are closer than 2 meters, they will not look good. Ideal range would be closer to 4 meters.

I choose the right aperture for the effect I want, not maximum sharpness.

Any lens is sharp @ f5.6, your 18-135 can produce just as sharp image.

Is this going to be indoor? At f8-11 you'd probably be looking at ISO1000 or above, might as well use your zoom with IS....

kin2son wrote in post #16337665
Is this going to be indoor? At f8-11 you'd probably be looking at ISO1000 or above, might as well use your zoom with IS....

Posed headshots implies lighting, no? Aperture selection should be independent of sharpness and light gathering in such situations and since the background is also controlled then all we really want is lots of DOF.

On the 50L, 2.0-4.0 is dead sharp for people, around 2.8 is the most sharpness at the lowest aperture

JeffreyG wrote in post #16337672
Posed headshots implies lighting, no?

Maybe I guess...

It depends on the size required as well, as no one's going to tell whether or not the ears are sharp...

The size will be maximum about 3x4 inches

I think i should be okey with f/5.6

Like mentioed earlier, unless this is outside anything F4 and up is in studio lighting territory , you don't mention if you will be using lights David so just wanted to confirm, cause wondering what the sharpest FStop and space on the 50 would be the least of your worries

thedcmule2 wrote in post #16337679
On the 50L, 2.0-4.0 is dead sharp for people, around 2.8 is the most sharpness at the lowest aperture

I agree with this. Really bad question for a fast prime. I didnt buy mine to shoot at F/8.....I get great results at F/2.0 with mine. So my answer is F/1.6 and up.. becuase if you use them right, they are super sharp wide open..........Bad question.

davidfarina wrote in post #16337779
The size will be maximum about 3x4 inches

I think i should be okey with f/5.6

You're worrying about lens sharpness for 3x4 inch size prints? Just decide how much DoF you want and go from there.

umphotography wrote in post #16337792
I agree with this. Really bad question for a fast prime. I didnt buy mine to shoot at F/8.....I get great results at F/2.0 with mine. So my answer is F/1.6 and up.. becuase if you use them right, they are super sharp wide open..........Bad question.

yeah I think its a waste of money if you shoot at f/5.6...completely unnecessary when even f/1.2-2.8 will provide the same sharpness if shot correctly...human face does not require that high of an aperture, think about how flat the human face is overall...

thread starter is not providing enough information about location, lighting or subjects...

edit: 3x4 inch prints...you can miss focus and still have sharp pictures dude 6D is 20.2 mp >_> just shoot at f/1.2-2.0, you can use a lower ISO and have cleaner images