Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

[OM] Re: Favorite portrait lens for OM

Subject: [OM] Re: Favorite portrait lens for OM
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 23:17:32 -0700
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


==============================================
List usage info:     http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies:        olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz