35 or 50 with crop?

britt777 wrote in post #10003726
I just wanted to know which lens most people preferred when using the 1.3 crop camera for portraits.

Set up a target simulating a portrait subject. Place your camera 8 to 10 feet from the "subject". Using whatever lenses you have, find the focal length or focal lengths that allow you to frame the "portrait" the way you would like to. Then you can tell us what focal length(s) you may be interested in and we'll recommend specific lenses.

This isn't rocket science, but you have to make some decisions before we can really help you.

between the two in the OP, i'd choose the 50

I am leaning strongly toward the 50mm 1.8 anyone have one they want to sell?....lol

For typical portraits and typical camera-subject distances, the 50mm lens is much better suited to the APS-C format cameras. I would strongly suggest something closer to 70mm or 80mm for the APS-H format cameras as a starting point.

If you use shorter focal lengths, you will quite naturally move the camera closer to the subject. This can easily cause problems with perspective which result in images that are not flattering to the subject(s).

If you have not read our tutorial on perspective control, please read our "sticky" (now found in the General Photography Talk forum) tutorial titled Perspective Control in Images - Focal Length or Distance?.


I've never used the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lenses, but they are cheap lenses with a lousy manual focus ring and I've read they don't focus all that well in auto focus mode.

What lenses do you have at present? I would guess that you have some perfectly adequate lenses for portrait work in your present collection.

Great read thank you!

I think theyre both great and is just a matter of personal preference. For me on a crop, i would probably go with the 35. But again, its all opinions here. Theres no rite/wrong answer.

Best suggestion is go to shop and try them out.