Big, bold portraits with the Panny 100-300

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that after literally a (adult) lifetime dedicated to neighborly head and shoulders portraits taken with the 85-90mm (FF) lens and now the Oly 45, I had suddenly developed a strange yen for big, bold, in your face portraits.

Today, after photographing the red flower at the back of the house, I turned around and saw my daughter and three other teens plus a couple of little kids sitting on the bench under the mango tree having a bit of a giggle at the mad man leaping around taking pictures of some dumb flower.

And there I was with the GX7 + 100-300 in my hand. What an opportunity!

So I walked up a bit and took a picture of the group.

Then walked closer, showed them the pictures, nd while they were disarmed, grabbed some individual shots (the young bloke, left in this group, immediately made himself scarce, of course).

Simaima with "lipstick" -- betelnut.

Daughter Jenny.

Cousin Bilee -- more betelnut. Bilee had been working in the yard so she was a bit sweaty.

Raeli (l.) and her big bro, Esau.

Now, in thinking about big c/u portraits, I had been thinking that the ideal lens would be a competition between the Oly 1.8 75 and the Panny 2.8 35-100 -- either of which would be a new purchase, naturally!

But look at the focal lengths I fell into using here -- they were the zooms I just felt comfortable with for these size faces. Neither the 75 nor the 35-100 comes close! Even my 45-150 doesn't quite have the reach. If I could settle for 150 (which I could, of course) but wanted more aperture (which I would, of course) the Oly f2.8 40-150 would beckon -- but that is only in a technological sense. There is also the financial sense, and financially the Oly is about as close as inter-galactic tourism! :\

By the way, the 100-300 and GX7 did a pretty good job here didn't they? Forget the moralistic messages about that though! Ha!