Portrait Lens

Your portrait lens choice is a strong factor in portrait photography.

Many photographers have many reasons to choose one lens over another or particular focal length over another.

In this tutorial, you will discover why a particular lens or focal length is appropriate.

First off, the way lenses are designed, and the way physics and optics work, is that the closer you are to the subject, the more distorted the view of the closest “thing” to the lens.

In most cases, in portrait photography, the subject’s nose is the closest to the lens.

Unless your choice is to emphasize the subject’s nose (for your creative purposes), it is best to stand about 3-4 meters (10-15 feet) away from your subject and use a longer focal length.

There are two advantages for this distance:

• Your subject has some breathing space
• Features of the subject are flattened and thus appear more flattering

If your subject is a friend or someone with whom you’ve established great rapport, the first point above may not be entirely applicable.

In most situations, it is nice to give your subject some space for privacy and comfort reasons.

For portraiture, your subject is the main focus. In this tutorial I recommend getting the viewer’s attention on the subject.

A zoom lens with a wide aperture (small f-stop number) is a good choice. Another good choice is a fast (small f-stop number) prime lens.

Prime lenses will give you the sharpest results but zoom lens are a bit more flexible. However, zoom lenses with large apertures, are big, heavy and expensive.

Ideal focal lengths are between 50-105 mm on a full-frame camera. Why? Because these focal lengths allow you to maintain a reasonable, yet intimate, distance between you and your subject.

Please remember that you are the photographer and lenses are some of your tools. So, work with what you have and don’t be afraid to experiment.

Love your camera. Love yourself. Love your photos.