nikon portrait lens ????

kungfukid

kungfukid

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Will
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I'm looking to buy a new lens for portrait / editorial style work, had a look around but I'm not sure what I want / need. I will be shooting with avalible light only so I guess speed is important.

the contenders;
50mm 1.8 nikon
85mm 1.8 nikon
sigma 18-50mm 2.8

To be used with a d70s + I have the 18-70 kit lens

any thoughts on these lenses?

thanks for your time
Will
 
I am not a Nikon user, so others may squash me but I would of thought the 50mm and 85mm are going to be too restricted on dof. also by not having a zoom lens you will have to move yourself rather than zoon in or out.

Just my thoughts...
 
Personally I would have thought the 85mm prime might be your best bet for portraiture ... :shrug:

It is certainly a fast lens and is definitely going to be quality glass and faster than any zoom 'equivalent' ... :D

And you have the flexibility of your kit lens to cover most focal lengths up to nearly the 85mm ... :thinking:




:p
 
rwotton said:
I am not a Nikon user, so others may squash me but I would of thought the 50mm and 85mm are going to be too restricted on dof. also by not having a zoom lens you will have to move yourself rather than zoon in or out.

Just my thoughts...
Click to expand...

You can always stop them down for more DOF.

85 1.8 would be my choice. Supposed to be a cracking lens! :D
 
I would go for the 85mm i think i may get one. I think wide angle lens's from around 10-30mm make the face look wide and a bit grotesque
 
On film the 85mm was considered the "classic" portrait focal length, however on digital I find it a little long. A 50mm length on Nikon gives an 80mm film equivalent, so actually a 50mm would be a good option.

I have the 85mm 1.4 and it's really a legendary lens - tough to describe but there's a snap and quality to the pictures that's unique to it out of all lenses I tried. However, it is long for portraiture. I wonder the 50mm 1.4 might be the best option for you? Good bokeh (better than the other options you mentioned) and fast, and much cheaper than the 85mm 1.4.

Just my thoughts.
 
thanks for all the comments, I think the 1.4 is super nice but I'm skint so It's gonna be a 1.8 50mm mabye an 85mm, has anyone got a sample of the same subject with the different focal lengths?
 
Try flickr, just search on the keywords.

The 85mm would make it very slightly easier to throw the background out-of-focus, but there's not much in it. On the other hand the 50mm F1.4 and the 85mm F1.8 are a similar price, meanwhile the 50mm F1.8 is much cheaper. Browsing flickr I can't see too much between them in bokeh, out-of-focus rendition etc (key items for portraiture), so maybe a 50mm F1.8 would be a good option for you?
 
just when I thought I knew what I wanted I found a tamron 35-105mm 2.8 looks to be a good buy..... going to research it a bit now. :)
 
Stick with the genuine brand fast aperture portrait primes if I were you,... generally better.

King.
 
I use the 50mm f1.8 and a tamron 17-50 for weddings and can recommend both. The nikkor is a steal for a lens of that optical quality.
 
Nikon make a couple of rather specialised portrait lenses.

105/2 DC and 135/2 DC. I have the latter and I love it.

The problem is of course those are only 'portrait length' on a full-frame camera, not on a Nikon DSLR with the 1.5x crop.

That doesn't bother me a bit, because I'm not using mine for portraits (well, portraits of flowers if you like, but not of humans particularly)

So for me it's a 200/2 that I can hand-hold with some fairly stunning results. The DC feature allowing you to do weird stuff with the out of focus areas of the photograph.

They're often available for a decent price used (relative to their extortionate price new anyhow) if you look around.
 
I just won a 50 1.8 on ebay for £55 so I'm gonna give that a go. Thanks for all your comments and help.

Will
 
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