The Best Portrait Lenses For a Budget Price

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Imagine this scenario…

You want a nice lens to use for portraits of your friends and family.

So, you hop online, search “best portrait lenses” for your particular type of camera, and boom - you’re presented with a lineup of really expensive glass.

Then the sadness sets in.

As a casual shooter, you don’t want (or need) to spend $1,500 on a professional-grade portrait lens. That means you’re out of luck, right?

Wrong!

There are plenty of excellent lenses available today that get you good results without forcing you to choose between paying for groceries or paying for your new lens.

It’s just a question of finding them!

What Makes a Great Portrait Lens, Anyway?

There are a lot of factors at play regarding what makes a lens great as opposed to just serviceable.

One of the first things to consider is the focal length.

If you shoot with a full frame camera like the Canon 5DS R, the ideal focal length for portraiture will be different than if you shoot with a crop sensor camera like the Nikon D5300. Looking at the graphic above, you can see how a cropped sensor camera records less data from the scene.

What this means is this: the effective focal length of a lens changes as the crop factor changes. So, where a 50mm lens operates as a 50mm lens on a full frame camera, on a crop sensor camera with a 1.5x crop factor, that same 50mm lens behaves like a 75mm lens.

Now that we have that out of the way...

When shooting full frame, 85mm is a great focal length because you can use it to get close-ups if need be, without being right up in the model’s face. Additionally, at that focal length you can compose upper body or full body portraits from a decent distance away.

But why is that important?

Often, people aren’t all that comfortable in front of the camera, so the more distance you can put between your subject and your lens, the more likely they are to be comfortable. And, the more comfortable they are, the better they’ll look in your photos.

Bonus feature: What’s more, an 85mm lens on a full frame camera has a slight amount of compression, which helps minimize the appearance of larger facial features, like noses, that help make the photo that much more pleasing.

If you shoot with a crop sensor camera, you might consider a 50mm lens. Depending on the crop factor, a 50mm lens might operate in the 65-80mm range. That means you can get similar results as with the 85mm lens and full frame camera combination discussed above.

Alternatively, you could decide to opt for the 85mm with your crop sensor camera and work at an effective focal length of about 110mm to 136mm. That means that standing side-by-side to a photographer with the same lens and a full frame camera, you can get close-ups of the model’s head and shoulders where the full frame shooter might have a view wide enough to be upper body.

Prime or Zoom?

One consideration to make is whether you want a zoom or a prime lens.

With a prime, you typically get larger maximum apertures, meaning you can shoot in lower lighting conditions than you can with a zoom. A larger aperture also gives you more leeway in terms of controlling depth of field, so you can more easily blur out the background to draw more attention to your subject.

Additionally, primes usually have better image quality for the simple fact that there are fewer elements for the light to pass through. The fewer the elements, the sharper the image.

On the flip side, zooms can be more versatile, giving you a range of focal lengths to work with in one package. You can shoot wide-angle to telephoto with some lenses, which could come in handy if you want a variety of portraits without having to swap lenses.

The fewer lens changes you have, the faster you can work, which your subjects are likely to appreciate. The downside is that zooms can be quite pricey and often exceed the budget of photographers that are looking to score a good lens without dropping a ton of money.

That said, let’s take a look at five prime lenses for various camera systems that are excellent options for portraiture.

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM

For many Canon shooters, there isn’t a better choice for a budget portrait lens than the 85mm f/1.8 USM. It’s not a new lens, but its build quality means that it has stood the test of time and still represents a solid lens for photographers of all levels and abilities.

One of the lens’s best features is its lightning fast autofocus system. The system is virtually silent as well, which comes in handy if you’re taking portraits of sensitive subjects, like a sleeping baby.

What’s more, with eight diaphragm blades, you get very pleasing bokeh and gorgeously blurred backgrounds. It’s compact too, so it will easily fit in your camera bag without taking up a ton of space.

Pros & Cons:

  • Wonderfully fast autofocus
  • Compact, tough design
  • It’s old (introduced in 2007)
  • Noticeable loss of sharpness at max aperture

Quick specs:

Nikon AF-S 85mm f/1.8G

The beauty of this lens - apart from it’s phenomenal price - is that it produces sharp results with excellent contrast, even when you push the aperture to its widest value at f/1.8.

The lens has minimal distortion, which is handy for any type of photo, but especially for portraiture. The colors of the scene stay true, with little color fringing. Its bokeh is eye-catching as well, which is a consequence of the rounded shape of the lens’s seven diaphragm blades.

Pros & Cons:

  • Excellent sharpness
  • Beautiful bokeh
  • Sluggish autofocus speed
  • Chromatic aberration can appear more often than in comparable lenses

Quick specs:

Canon 50mm F/1.4 USM

Though there is a cheaper Canon 50mm option, the 50mm f/1.4 USM is a better lens (for about double the price). Whether you shoot on a full frame or a crop sensor camera, this little lens will give you great results up close and at a distance.

This lens is well known for its sharpness and clarity. It offers delightful background blur as well. Like the Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM reviewed earlier, this lens is small and compact, meaning you can easily add it to your camera bag without removing other lenses or gear.

Pros & Cons:

  • Short 1.5 ft minimum focusing distance
  • Huge f/1.4 maximum aperture
  • It’s old (introduced in 2007)
  • Soft edges when at max aperture

Quick specs:

Rokinon 85MAF-N 85mm F1.4 Aspherical Lens for Nikon

Though we’ve chosen to highlight the model of this lens that is compatible with Nikon cameras, there is actually a wide-ranging line of lenses for Canon, Fuji, Sony, Olympus, and other major brands.

Regardless of the camera system you use, this lens offers superb optics that result in sharp portraits. Focusing is quick and easy as well. However, the minimum focusing distance is a bit long at 3.3 feet and it has manual focus, which can be hard to master. However, that’s a worthy trade-off for the exceptional quality of the images that result.

Pros & Cons:

  • Superb sharpness
  • Various models for different camera systems
  • Manual focus only
  • Heavier than other comparable lenses

Quick specs:

  • Max aperture: f/1.4
  • Min aperture: f/22
  • Number of elements: 14 (in 7 groups)
  • Focal length: 85mm fixed
  • Min focus distance: 3.3 feet
  • Compatible cameras: Canon, Nikon, Sony E Mount, Sony A Mount, Olympus, Pentax, FujiFilm X-Mount
  • Currently $329.00 at Amazon
  • See used price here.

Sony NEX 50mm f1.8 OSS

If you’re one of the fast-growing number of Sony shooters, you’ll want to pick up your own Sony NEX 50mm f1.8 OSS. It has unparalleled sharpness with virtually no distortion or vignetting. The result is clear, sharp portraits that are a joy to view.

Additionally, the lens is able to create sharp results even when shooting wide open. As far as bokeh goes, it is buttery smooth. Speaking of smooth, the lens has Sony’s venerable Optical Steady Shot stabilization system, which means your lens will help you take portraits that will be sharper.

Pros & Cons:

  • Incredible sharpness, even at wide apertures
  • Sony’s OSS system
  • Best used with a camera equipped with an electronic viewfinder
  • Chromatic aberration can be an issue at wider apertures

Quick specs:

Any of the lenses reviewed here will serve you well as you seek to take more (and better) portraits. Give each one a more thorough inspection, and select a lens that works with your current camera system. Get some practice with your new lens, and before long, you’ll likely see a vast improvement in the quality of your portraits, all without spending a huge amount of money on a new portrait lens.