What portrait lens?

mcc49 · 30 Dec 2009 at 23:08

Another vote for the 135L here. Extremely fast AF speed even in low light makes it much more than a studio portrait lens, decent size/weight and it renders really nice bokeh. Can be picked up for around £700 or less if you shop around.

rG-tom · 31 Dec 2009 at 03:49

the 85mm f1.8 is a stunning stunning portrait lens.....the 1.2 is great for wow factor and the extra stop but this is lost by it being 5x more expensive, 5x slower at focusing and 3x heavier

VirtualAdept · 31 Dec 2009 at 04:31

Raymond Lin said:
, the crop factor might have made it into a 80mm field of vision but the focal length stays the same,

I'll be completely honest, I have absolutely no idea what you mean there.
I know my camera, for example, has a crop of 1.6 but I always assumed that meant it'd basically multiply the lens focal length by that much.
Am I wrong?

JBuk · 31 Dec 2009 at 06:50

VirtualAdept said:
I'll be completely honest, I have absolutely no idea what you mean there.
I know my camera, for example, has a crop of 1.6 but I always assumed that meant it'd basically multiply the lens focal length by that much.
Am I wrong?

This site explains it http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/tutorials/crop_sensor_cameras_and_lenses.html

VirtualAdept · 31 Dec 2009 at 11:32

That explains it nicely, thank you.

greedy123 · 31 Dec 2009 at 12:17

Raymond Lin said:
I posted this on TP

...

Doing it on the cheap

50/1.8 - £80

Doing it with some moola !

50/1.4 - £250
85/1.8 - £300

Doing it with a MASSIVE moola

50/1.2
135/2.0 £800
100/2.8 Macro IS - £800
85/1.2 - £1500
Canon 70-200/2.8 IS - £1200

Then there are the 24-70 variants from everyone too.

But note the crop factor....

Traditionally...protrait lens are from 80mm to 200mm. This is due to the perspectives, and this element STILL applies, the crop factor might have made it into a 80mm field of vision but the focal length stays the same, hence...(this will cause some people to get angry no doubt), 50mm is not your classic portrait lens. Sure, you can take portraits at 50mm, hell, you can take nice portraits at 35mm too (even on FF), but classically, you need longer focal length for portraits.

85mm, 100mm, 135mm

Those are your portrait lenses.

Best bang for buck.....85mm/1.8

Out of interest how do you have so much quality stuff for sale?! Also what is your opinion of the 100mm 2.8 IS macro? I'm very close to selling my sigma 150mm and buying one of those as an upgrade.

My problem with the 150mm is that at 2.8 the dof is so small so I think a 100mm would be more useful to give a bigger dof at 2.8.

Raymond Lin · 31 Dec 2009 at 12:19

greedy123 said:
Out of interest how do you have so much quality stuff for sale?! Also what is your opinion of the 100mm 2.8 IS macro? I'm very close to selling my sigma 150mm and buying one of those as an upgrade.

My problem with the 150mm is that at 2.8 the dof is so small so I think a 100mm would be more useful to give a bigger dof at 2.8.

For sale??? Noooo lol That's just my opinion on portrait lenses.

greedy123 · 31 Dec 2009 at 12:27

Lol good, no one should have that much for sale!

Been looking and you can get a new UK sourced Canon 100mm 2.8 IS macro for just over £700... If i manage to sell the 17-55 and 28-135mm that'd leave me more than enough to get one! Could afford to keep the 150mm although I doubt I'd end up using both...