Best Portrait Lens??

Indoors, 90% of the time, my Tamron 28-75 between 65-75mm. The other 10% of the time, 85/1.8.

I rarely shoot indoor portraits wider than f4... most of the time it's f5.6 with lights. Rarely are they "posed" so some DOF is needed to not flub the shot.

Outdoors..... anything goes, including a 70-200 f4 IS. Even my 10-22 at times when the central subject is not the entire focus of the shot.

I would have little use for a 50mm prime.

For me, the 85L is unrivaled. Great for low light work with the super fast aperture, and wonderful for portrait work from f/2-f/4 (enough DOF to get both eyes in focus). Beautiful colors, beautiful bokeh, incredibly sharp...not too contrasty, so skin tones look wonderful.

I use my Sigma 30 f/1.4 a good bit of the time for the wider fully body type of shots, or more intimate framings.

The Canon 100mm 2.0 lens is wonderful for portraits. I use it wide open and its perfect for portraits. The bokeh is outstanding!

A little long for indoors, no ?

85/1.8

bohdank wrote in post #7011956
A little long for indoors, no ?

that's what she said.

Owned a 30. Nice low light lens on a cropper. not a great portrait lens as it has some barrel distortion, and the fov at 30 is not super flattering for head and neck shots, but good for environmental portraits.
Owned canon 85 1.8 on a cropper and full frame. Yes, its a great value. very sharp and fast focusing. I like it better on the 5D, b/c of shallow dof, and the focal length is a touch too long on the cropper for me.
Owned the simga 105 2.8 macro on a cropper and full frame. Great macro lens, and sharp. However, slow focusing. on a cropper at that focal length and f 2.8, I need IS. not my top 3 choice for a portrait lens.
Own the 70-200 2.8 IS lens. Lovely on the 5D. possibly best all around portrait combination with 5D. A little long on a cropper. but thats just my shooting style.
85 1.2 on full frame. Amazing lens. in a class of its own. I especially like it on the 5D. expensive and not as much flexibility as a zoom.
On a crop, my favorite portrait lens was the tamron 28-75 2.8. I found it plenty sharp (at least my copy) at 2.8 for portrait. also good focal range. If you can swing the money, you can get the canon L. I have the 28-70 and love it. for the extra money you get faster and more accurate focusing, better corner performance esp on full frame, better built, and better color and contrast.
If you are set on primes, my favorites would be sigma 50 1.4, and canon 85 1.8 for the money on a cropper. I did not own a 50-150 cropper zoom (I think both sigma and tokina make a 2.8 zoom in that range) might be worth a look. again at 2.8 in that range I would like to have IS.
If you are doing studio portrait, then buy a zoom. you will be shooting it stopped down anyway.
good luck.

TheGreatDivorce wrote in post #7010725
And focal length doesn't have an effect on DOF. Aperture, and more importantly, subject distance, do.

Focal length in and of itself does not have an effect on DOF, but the combination of that and subject distance as you stated do. If you are standing close to someone at 50mm for example you may have decent DOF, but if you take a step or two backwards and go to 70mm or 85mm you will have about the same frame, but greater DOF. So in a way focal length does have an effect on DOF, but like you said only in conjunction with subject distance.

As for the OP, I either use the 24-70 2.8 and every now and then if I am indoors in low light will grab the trusty 50mm 1.8 (The best $80.00 you can spend on a lens)

Hm.. I'm gonna go from my 17-55 to 24-70 and from 70-200 sigma to canon 70-200 IS some time in next few months.. I guess that will cover my needs. I was just wondering if people that own mid zoon lenses (17-55, 24-70) and long zoon (70-200) also own a "portrait" lens.
Thanks for all of your input..

One of the 24/28-60/70/75/80 f/2.8 would give you coverage from couples to full body to 3/4 and head and shoulders.

If you are working from a FF camera and don't need AF, look at the Leica Summicron-R 90mm f/2 (pre-APO) and adapt it to fit your camera with an easily attachable Leica-EOS adapter:

The 17-55 2.8 lives on my crop and the 24-105 lives on my full frame, and I like my 70-200 F4 IS for a little extra reach, but when it comes to portraits, it’s the…

50L on crop:

Right Cranium Imaging wrote in post #7012743
Focal length in and of itself does not have an effect on DOF, but the combination of that and subject distance as you stated do. If you are standing close to someone at 50mm for example you may have decent DOF, but if you take a step or two backwards and go to 70mm or 85mm you will have about the same frame, but greater DOF. So in a way focal length does have an effect on DOF, but like you said only in conjunction with subject distance.

DOF is only greater in that scenario because you hypothetically moved back. Given the same framing and aperture, the only effect focal length has is the compression, and how diffuse the background blur is. Actual DOF is the same.

I love my 85/1.2 but the 135/2.0 is almost a tie breaker.

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TheGreatDivorce wrote in post #7013698
DOF is only greater in that scenario because you hypothetically moved back. Given the same framing and aperture, the only effect focal length has is the compression, and how diffuse the background blur is. Actual DOF is the same.

Compression.

Say that one word in the same breath as 'focal length' and you'll have some people screaming 'Bloody murder!'

Let's wait and see.