Change of pace. Move from sports to portraiture/landscape.

Over the winter, sports shooting slowed down to almost nothing, so I picked up some portraiture and landscape, and now shooting sports is just not as appealing to me anymore.

I've found that my 70-200 f4L works well for headshots, but is a bit long for 3/4's and full body, especially in my home studio where distance between me and the subject is limited.

I love the perspective that the kit lens gives wide open at 18mm, but I feel the performance is way behind what I get from the f4L. That's why was looking to trade/sell my 70-200 and grab a 17-40 f4L to replace it.

From what I've read, it would be a great landscape lens, but I'm curious how well it would work for headshots. At 64mm on the long end on the 1.6x sensor, it seems a little short, and I could possibly just use my nifty fifty for headshots and pick up a super-wide (tokina 11-16 or similar) that isn't canon L, although I <3 L glass.

Any suggestions on lenses to replace my 70-200 with? I'm fine with buying off brand lenses, but a constant aperture is a high priority, as well as a price under 600 (I don't mind buying used).

unchman14 wrote in post #10169332
Over the winter, sports shooting slowed down to almost nothing, so I picked up some portraiture and landscape, and now shooting sports is just not as appealing to me anymore.

I've found that my 70-200 f4L works well for headshots, but is a bit long for 3/4's and full body, especially in my home studio where distance between me and the subject is limited.

I love the perspective that the kit lens gives wide open at 18mm, but I feel the performance is way behind what I get from the f4L. That's why was looking to trade/sell my 70-200 and grab a 17-40 f4L to replace it.

From what I've read, it would be a great landscape lens, but I'm curious how well it would work for headshots. At 64mm on the long end on the 1.6x sensor, it seems a little short, and I could possibly just use my nifty fifty for headshots and pick up a super-wide (tokina 11-16 or similar) that isn't canon L, although I <3 L glass.

Any suggestions on lenses to replace my 70-200 with? I'm fine with buying off brand lenses, but a constant aperture is a high priority, as well as a price under 600 (I don't mind buying used).

Cody
You've reached a similar postion to me. Except I use full-frame so lens choice is slightly different.
What I'm doing now is looking at manual focus lenses between 35mm and 50mm. Much cheaper but I'll be putting adaptors on the body. OR... choose a 35mm Canon autofocus. Unfortunately you can't make good use of the best value lens in Canon's range. The 85mm f/1.8. At some stage you are going to bump (and be tempted to buy into) the capabilities introduced by very shallow depth of field (i.e. f/1.2, f1.4 and f/1.8 lenses) and the importance of controlling bokeh.
You could start the journey now with a 50mm f/1.4.

manual focus is definitely an option, but I definitely want something a bit wider. I love what the wide apertures offer, but I'm a broke highschool student, soon to be a broke-r college student, so I don't have a huge amount of expendable cash.

First, perspective depends only on distance. You must maintain a distance of at least ~6' for a flattering perspective. Once you've chosen the distance you like to get the perspective you like, you can choose your focal lengths. As it turns out a 17-40mm, in all probability, will cover very little of it if you do anything tighter than half-body. On 35mm, a 135mm lens is the about the minimum for a headshot, and 85mm for head & shoulders (so 85 and 50mm on APS-C).

Basically you're going to have to have a telephoto lens if you want to do certain types of portraiture, unless you're gonna crop a half-body shot to head & shoulders all the time. You can switch the 70-200 for a Sigma 50-150/2.8 or Tokina 50-135/2.8, or switch to a 5D so the 70-200 becomes the do-it-all portrait lens it was designed to be.

I suggest getting any "digital-only" lens instead of the 17-40, if you decide to go that course - you can get faster, sharper, and/or stabilized lenses for less money.

On a crop, I used my Tamron 28-75 as my main portrait lens, indoors and, later an 85/1.8

2 FF bodies later I still have the 28-75 although it serves a different purpose now.

For an indoor studio, I think the 28-75 has an excellent focal range and is plenty sharp for your intended use. It also has the benefit of being relatively inexpensive.

Alas, not very wide on a crop.

Cody:

I shoot both sports and portraits and spec'd my lenses to crossover for both shooting assignments as much as possible. The all lenses will do portraits ok, but might not be the best but all work. They also shoot basketball and football as well!

dave

so it looks like the f4L is a handy lens to keep, so I may just save myself some money and pick up a wide fixed length FD lens.