Best lens for portraits and other personal pictures

[John Hawkins]

I am thinking about purchasing a 50 mm f/1.4 lens for taking portrait and other personal type photos. I use a Sony A100. Would this be the way to go? Thanks for your feedback.
John

[Charles Glatzer]

Portraits are typically taken with lenses in the 85-135mm range, as this avoids foreshortening.

Depending on your camera crop factor a shorter focal length may work. A mid-range fixed aperture zoom is very practical for portraits.

Best

Chas

[Stefan Minnig]

John,

I'm don't know much about Sony's line-up of lenses, but I've used an 85mm F/1.8 with my Canon for portraits and they have turned out phenomenal. Of course, I am getting a tight crop of head and shoulders from 6-8 feet away, so the 50mm will give you a slightly wider take from that distance. I have a 1.6 crop factor on my camera also. If you have the opportunity, visit a camera store in the neighborhood to check out a 50mm. That should give you a good idea of what to expect. Good Luck.

Stefan

[Thomas Judd]

John,

A fast 50 mm lens, like what you are considering, can be nice for portraits, especially full length shots of individuals, couples, or small groups of people when you have plenty of space to shoot in. However, for closer up head shots of individuals a slightly longer focal length will typically give a more flattering appearance. Since you are using a crop-sensor camera, you may be okay in using a 50 mm lens, however, I would still suggest a medium-short telephoto prime as the best choice over all in portrait lens. Something like a 85 mm f/1.8. Or even a high-quality short zoom lens like a 24-70 mm f/2.8 mm would work well and be more useful for other things. The faster the lens, the more you can throw the background behind your subject out of focus by using a large f/stop. Just beware, faster lenses also cost more and are larger and heavier. A longer focal length lens will also help soften the background for portraits as will getting close to your subject and having a good amount of open space behind them, if this is an effect you are hoping to achieve in your portraits.

My favorite lens for individual head shots in the studio is the 85 mm f/1.8. I use it on both full frame and cropped sensor DSLR camera bodies. Though it rarely gets used for anything else in my case.

Good luck choosing!

Tom

[John Chardine]

As far as I know, the crop factor of the body does not affect how foreshortened the image is. This is determined by the lens itself and not the size of the sensor/film on which the image from the lens is being projected. If you made a portrait up close of someone's face with a 14mm lens you would get the same "big nose effect" regardless of the crop factor; the 1.6 body would just miss the surrounding part of the image that would be recorded on a FF body.

[Phil Colla]

John, I don't know what lenses are available for your Sony or what you own. If you have it already, a 300mm f/2.8 is a downright super lens for tight portraits, or when you have the room to backup a bit. It is often used for outdoor shoots (swimsuit, torso and head shots, etc.). The bokeh and compression (flattening) tend to be very flattering on the subject. These lenses tend to be very sharp and can be effective portrait lenses wide open.

[Michael Pancier]

you can't go wrong with any prime 1.4 or 1.2 lens. But my bread and butter lens for portraits is the 70-200 2.8 and a 24-70 2.8 for group shots (on full frame camera)

[Scott A. Flaherty]

I've done my best portrait work using a 70-200mm usually set at approx 125mm to 150mm.

[Tony Whitehead]

If I had to have only 1 lens for individual portraits it would be my 70-200 2.8. My 50 1.8 gets a lot of use though on both D300 and D700 - especially for small groups.