This past week a friend of mine stopped by to show me his new lens. After talking about the lens quality, he added that it was a great lens for portraiture. Now there is a lingering question that I have no doubt written about in the past. “What is a great lens for portraiture?”
Although I had not tried his Tokina 50 -135mm I expect he was right thinking it would be a good portrait lens. On his cropped sensor camera, the lens would have an effective focal length of approximately 75-202mm.
Focal length - I’ll mention for those few readers that aren’t familiar with that long used photographic term: A lenses focal length refers to the distance between the imaging plane (the sensor) and the point where all light rays intersect inside the lens.
A longer focal length leads to higher magnification (telephoto) with a narrower angle of view. A shorter focal length (wide angle) lens has less magnification and a wider angle of view.
The longer focal length, as in my friend’s 50-135mm, will have a pleasing effect on a subject because the minimally curved surface of the lens flattens the perspective between the eyes and ears. While the wider the focal length means more of the front element or lens glass is curved making the distance or perspective between the eyes and ears more visible. A wide angle enlarges the nose and reduces the size of the ears.
Personally, I want as much focal length as I can get when making a portrait. The longer lens is my choice and depending on the ratio of length to weight as in my big 70-200mm, is in my opinion a perfect lens in the studio. However, it’s weight might be a liability for some photographers when spending the day following a couple around at their wedding.
I can remember going to a Dean Collins’ workshop. Dean Collins was a commercial photographer, educator,and master at controlling light. I had worked hard to get an invitation to one of his limited participant sessions. Collins demonstrated his shooting techniques on both a medium format (2 ¼ in film) and 35mm cameras. He used a 350mm on the medium format and 300mm on the 35mm. There was also a slide presentation discussing how the longer lenses flattered the features of those he made portraits of.
I was impressed with the 300-millimetre lens. It was spectacular to use for portraits and I think there were lots of fashion photographers using 300mm and longer lenses. I will say that I use a monopod when using longer than 200mm or I get camera shake.
I recently read a post by a photographer who stated that lenses with an aperture of f/2.8 or wider are a must for portraits. His reasoning is because the background should always be out of focus. I don’t always agree with that. A wide aperture just means one can reduce the depth of field. To me it depends on how far away my subject is, how busy the background is, or if I’m in a studio using a paper backdrop. To me the length of the lens, and how it affects my subject, is much more important.
A telephoto lens reduces the effect of lens distortion and helps keep facial features in proportion. The longer lens also creates a shallower depth of field that helps one’s subject to stand out from the background. Nevertheless, I think those photographers that regularly do portraiture have their preferred lenses that they are comfortable using.
Photography is a creative medium and the final answer as to what is the best is up to the photographer and, of course, whether or not the subject is happy with the result.
Stay safe and be creative. These are my thoughts for this week. Contact me at www.enmanscamera.com or emcam@telus.net.
