Top portrait lens

Kaso wrote:

diness wrote:

AdamWCohenVisuals wrote:

diness wrote:

Lets say you have to go and do an outdoor portrait shoot, but you can only have one lens under $2000. What lens do you take to get the best shots? Assuming full frame

"Best shots" would have to be unpacked before answering this question. Are you shooting portraits of kids? Portraits of a family? Does getting a sense of place matter to these portraits? Will you have the ability to use a tripod? How reliable is your hand-held technique?

You can make beautiful portraits with the lenses everybody has already recommended. You can also make beautiful portraits with wider lenses or even longer lenses.

There is no "Best," there is only "best for you."

Maybe go here (http://www.flickriver.com/lenses/canon/) and look at the pictures people take with different focal lengths to find out which have the style and feeling you're drawn to. Or download a smartphone app like Artemis for the iPhone and visit a museum with sculptures of people in it or go outside with a willing friend to experiment and see what focal lengths give you warm fuzzies.
Personally, I love the 35L f1.4L mk2 and the 135 f2 for outdoor portrait sessions. You could swing the 35 f2IS and the 135 for under $2000.
Good luck!

Yep, I understand all that! It's just a poll. I personally have the 85mm f1.8, 35mm f2 is and 70-200 f4L. I use the 85mm for outdoor portraits the most. I was curious to see what most would choose in the poll, that's all!

Well, actually, your thread title is not very helpful -- unless people pay enough attention to the details in the text of the OP.

paying attention to the content of a post is helpful.   The title could be better, I will certainly grant it.   I didn't spend a long time thinking of the title

"Top portrait lens." People tend to react (emotionally) to such a phrase and ask a lot of pedantic questions.

its a poll on an Internet forum...  there's no need for anyone to get emotional about it

Your poll was based on the hypothetical situation: Suppose you were invited to an outdoors portrait shooting session, and you were not told anything about the setup, and you were allowed to bring only one lens under $2000 with your full-frame camera, what is the one lens that you would bring?

The poll has nothing to do with "best portrait lens" / "best for what" / "best for whom"..

Sure it does.   How many people buy a lens for one exact situation?  Who goes and buys a portrait lens to do outdoor photos of a family of four with two cats and a lake behind them?  The situation is intentionally vague, but specific enough to be helpful in my mind.  I didn't just say "portraits" because indoor in a studio would be vastly different.  I only said outdoor because I wanted to leave it open to some variety for what that could mean.