Portrait lens?

I'm interested on your opinions on a good (but not so expensive) portrait lens for Canon (T3i).
TIA!

You may or may not need a specialized lens for this.  See this thread -

www.photographytalk.com/forum/beginner-p...lenses-prime-vs-zoom

Kelly Cook

In my opinion, you'll never go wrong using a 50mm prime lens on a cropped sensor camera for portraits. It's going to be the best bang-for-the-buck lens for most applications including portraits.

For portraiture I typically will use a prime lens. any 50mm, 85mm or 105mm are commonly used in portraiture. 

85mm is my portrait prime of choice every time.

Oddly enough, a quick search through the PT forums reveals a large number of threads on this very subject. Here's 2:

www.photographytalk.com/forum/lenses/254...for-portraits#326293

www.photographytalk.com/forum/beginner-p...lenses-prime-vs-zoom

The latter contains pointers to other threads.

To directly answer your question, 85mm for portraits. The longer the better. I do not care for swollen, misshapen noses.

The swollen misshapen nose is affected by subject distance as well as focal length. It's not all about focal length. I felt much the same as you until I saw how Joel Grimes worked. He uses his 24-70 a majority of the time. He doesn't get misshapen faces. Your answer is a good general rule but not the end all be all.

And a lens can be compensated for in LR, which I always do. Yes, geometry is everything, but some tend to overlook that because the short focal lengths "slim" the face. Blech. Mr. Grimes clearly compensates for distortion. He makes nice images.

garyrhook wrote: And a lens can be compensated for in LR, which I always do. Yes, geometry is everything, but some tend to overlook that because the short focal lengths "slim" the face. Blech. Mr. Grimes clearly compensates for distortion. He makes nice images.

I never saw him do anything in LR or PS to compensate for distortion. I was surprised at how normal his images looked shooting the 24-70 at roughly 50mm and fairly close. It changed my opinion of what can be done with shorter focal lengths. I saw him process several images and he never even made a reference in passing to that type of correction.

Shadowfixer1 wrote:

garyrhook wrote: And a lens can be compensated for in LR, which I always do. Yes, geometry is everything, but some tend to overlook that because the short focal lengths "slim" the face. Blech. Mr. Grimes clearly compensates for distortion. He makes nice images.

I never saw him do anything in LR or PS to compensate for distortion. I was surprised at how normal his images looked shooting the 24-70 at roughly 50mm and fairly close. It changed my opinion of what can be done with shorter focal lengths. I saw him process several images and he never even made a reference in passing to that type of correction.

I'm going to go with "that's impossible." He probably had basic adjustments done on import (if he was using LR). Mine automatically applies lens profile correction and I never even think about it any more.

PS, a different story; I'm not familiar enough with its intricacies. But I think we all agree that lens geometry doesn't magically change just because an accomplished photographer is taking the photograph.

garyrhook wrote:

Shadowfixer1 wrote:

garyrhook wrote: And a lens can be compensated for in LR, which I always do. Yes, geometry is everything, but some tend to overlook that because the short focal lengths "slim" the face. Blech. Mr. Grimes clearly compensates for distortion. He makes nice images.

I never saw him do anything in LR or PS to compensate for distortion. I was surprised at how normal his images looked shooting the 24-70 at roughly 50mm and fairly close. It changed my opinion of what can be done with shorter focal lengths. I saw him process several images and he never even made a reference in passing to that type of correction.

I'm going to go with "that's impossible." He probably had basic adjustments done on import (if he was using LR). Mine automatically applies lens profile correction and I never even think about it any more.

PS, a different story; I'm not familiar enough with its intricacies. But I think we all agree that lens geometry doesn't magically change just because an accomplished photographer is taking the photograph.

Whatever Gary. I know what I saw with my own eyes. I'll just leave it at that.

Shadowfixer1 wrote: Whatever Gary. I know what I saw with my own eyes. I'll just leave it at that.

Please forgive my tendency to prattle on unnecessarily.