usher99@xxxxxxx wrote:
>Wonder what people like for this application with or without double duty with
>digital body.
>
You are kidding, right?
For what sort of portraits? Head shots, head & shouders, head and torso,
full length, small group body and up, .......? Formal, casual, candid?
Do you like close ones to be sharp just in the plane of the eyes, as
many so, or everything sharp from tip of nose to ears, like some others?
Kind to skin imperfections or "count the pores". glamour or journalism?
What is the nature of the background and how close to the subject is it?
For general purpose head & shoulders through head and torso, it's hard
to beat the 85/2. That's the classic fl and that use is what it was
primarily designed for. It will work just fine technically for head
shots, but some subjects may feel the camera is uncomfortably close. The
100/2.8 gives extra stand off distance without much loss of
speed/shallow DOF and no significant change in perspective.
Focal length does affect perspective for the same subject coverage. A
head shot from close to straight ahead of someone with a sharp, pointy
face and long nose with a 50mm lens will tend to look quite
unflattering. 135 or 200 mm might actually be most flattering. The
reverse is true for people with very flat, shallow faces.
For full length and small groups, a standard 50mm is hard to beat.
>Can a lens actually be too sharp for this application?
>
>
Depends on what you want. We used to have a guy on the list who whined
about all the work he had to do on pictures of his girlfriend and her
friends when his tack sharp 90mm macro lens accurately rendered every
tiny flaw in their complections. If he didn't "fix" the shots, he would
lose the models.I think he had lighting problems too, which is a whole
other subject, but does interact with the lens. Some famous portraitists
showed very sharp detail in closeups, others found combinations of
lighting, lens, film, etc. that gave the appearance of sharpness while
not emphazing faults. Some older, simpler lens designs somehow give this
impression of sharpness while playing down skin flaws. I think the
modern description would be good overall contrast with modest local area
contrast.
I used to like using my old Tokina RMC 80-200/4 zoom for candids in
informal gatherings. It's long enough that most people don't realize
just what you are doing, not too long, so the perspective of shots from
the side looks fine; at 200mm, f4 is just shallow enough DOF and f4 at
200mm has just enough of the right abberations to give that apparently
sharp, but flattering look to skin.
Moose
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