Which portrait lens would you choose?

I have a Nikon d90 and my husband wants to get me a good portrait lens for my birthday. I had been eye on the 50mm 1.8 lens. He has been talking to someone we know who works at a local camera shop and she suggested the 35mm 1.8 lens.

Which would you go with? I am just afraid the 35mm is too much for me, but I am not sure.

For portraits, usually longer is better....so I'd suggest the 50mm over the 30mm. Although, longer lenses are harder to work with then you are indoors and space is limited.

Longer lenses also help to give you that 'Shallow DOF' that you are looking for.

on a crop I'd go for one of these:

Sigma 50 1.4
Sigma 85 1.4

Try them out.

The 50mm is better for portraits. A 35mm will let you work in tighter spaces, and the 85mm is the best for outdoor shots.

There are other choices that cost more, but these are the three you should start with. Combined cost under $1000, and can be used to make professional quality images.

Matthew

50mm ...group shots and full length and 85mm for everything else. First priority I think would be the 50mm f1.8 or better yet 50mm f1.4.

I have the 50mm1.8 and have used it for portraits, it is very sharp and inexpensive. The other thing is our Nikons have a 1.5 mulitipler so the 50 turns out to be a 65mm with our sensors. Unless you get a full frame camera.

MLKstudios wrote: The 50mm is better for portraits. A 35mm will let you work in tighter spaces, and the 85mm is the best for outdoor shots.

Your style must be a wider style because 85 is fine indoors. Tonight I was using 340mm indoors. It depends on how tight you want to shoot. I often shoot 200mm indoors at 2.8 to get shots like this:

(first pic I found online BTW nothing special).

My favorites are:

Nikkor 50mm f/1.4
Nikkor 85mm f/1.4

Absolutely beautiful lenses but will be a bit longer with the smaller sensors. I shoot with a full frame camera and love these lenses.

Silverphoto1 wrote: My favorites are:

Nikkor 50mm f/1.4
Nikkor 85mm f/1.4

Absolutely beautiful lenses but will be a bit longer with the smaller sensors. I shoot with a full frame camera and love these lenses.

They're nice lenses, but the Sigma versions are just as good (with better bokeh) and for a cheaper price. In this case I wouldn't go for the Nikon lenses.

35mm on APS-C is pretty close to a "normal" field of view. It might be quite handy, but most of the time a longer than normal lens would be recommended for portraits. 50mm or 85mm would be a nice portrait lens length. Nothing wrong with going for the f/1.8 versions over the f/1.4 versions either.

Silverphoto1 wrote: My favorites are:

Nikkor 50mm f/1.4
Nikkor 85mm f/1.4

Absolutely beautiful lenses but will be a bit longer with the smaller sensors. I shoot with a full frame camera and love these lenses.

Hey, Kristi! Nice to see you here!

Stealthy Ninja wrote:

Silverphoto1 wrote: My favorites are:

Nikkor 50mm f/1.4
Nikkor 85mm f/1.4

Absolutely beautiful lenses but will be a bit longer with the smaller sensors. I shoot with a full frame camera and love these lenses.

They're nice lenses, but the Sigma versions are just as good (with better bokeh) and for a cheaper price. In this case I wouldn't go for the Nikon lenses.

I have Sigmas but I have the Nikkor 50mm f1.8 and it was pretty inexpensive too.

McBeth Photography wrote:

50mm ...group shots and full length and 85mm for everything else. First priority I think would be the 50mm f1.8 or better yet 50mm f1.4.

Nikonjan wrote: I have the 50mm1.8 and have used it for portraits, it is very sharp and inexpensive. The other thing is our Nikons have a 1.5 mulitipler so the 50 turns out to be a 65mm with our sensors. Unless you get a full frame camera.

Excellent point. A 50mm on a full frame would require you to be very close to your subject for a head shot that doesn't require strong cropping. But the 50 works very weel on a DX camera

Nikonjan wrote:

Stealthy Ninja wrote:

Silverphoto1 wrote: My favorites are:

Nikkor 50mm f/1.4
Nikkor 85mm f/1.4

Absolutely beautiful lenses but will be a bit longer with the smaller sensors. I shoot with a full frame camera and love these lenses.

They're nice lenses, but the Sigma versions are just as good (with better bokeh) and for a cheaper price. In this case I wouldn't go for the Nikon lenses.

I have Sigmas but I have the Nikkor 50mm f1.8 and it was pretty inexpensive too.

Thing is 50 1.8 lenses are 1.8 lenses.

The Sigma ones have the same aperture as the more expensive ones but with smoother bokeh and are in between the prices of the 1.8 lenses and the 1.4 lenses. The Canon 50/85 1.2 has smoother boken than Sigma, but it has focus quirks and is very expensive.

I've have the Nikon 50 1.8 and have used the Canon 50 1.8. Both suck compared to the Sigma 1.4 (of course this is my opinion and YMMV)

With portraits the quality of the bokeh is pretty important. Nikon bokeh can get busy. Sigma lenses are sometimes slightly softer at the widest aperture (still sharp enough) but the bokeh is much smoother IMHO.

For the noobs who will probably ask:

Bokeh = the quality of the out of focus elements of the picture. It's Japanese for haze/blur and is a pretty common photography term.