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My next prime portrait lens should be ... ?

Started 7 months ago | Questions thread
antonio-salieri Regular Member • Posts: 208
Re: My next prime portrait lens should be ... ?

atolk wrote:

Thinness of DoF is a gift and a curse as Mr. Monk would say. I am not into thinness of DoF, believe it or not. But contrast, background separation and pleasing bokeh/background blur are good. Plus I was told (in this very thread) not to covet sharpness. You may want to find this branch, but you probably know intuitively what that's about.

Of course, you can always stop down... The Sigma 135mm f/1.8 (the thinnest DOF of any of these, I believe) can of course be stopped down to f/2 or whatever you'd like. As for coveting sharpness, I do --- but I also the Sigma 135mm f/1.8 is going to beat the Canon 135mm f/2 on contrast, fringing, CA... (seehttps://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=1122&Camera=979&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=1&LensComp=108&CameraComp=979&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=0, if you like test chart photos). Of course, the 135mm f/2 is still a good lens.

I cringed a little bit every time one this one (female) reviewer used the word "dreamy" when describing her test of one of these lenses, I forgot which one -- I looked at a lot of video reviews. I believe she decided the lens was "the most dreamy" she has ever tested. And it was not the RF 85 f/1.2. But at the end of the day, cringeworthy or not, "dreamy" is what sells on IG as well as senior packages and other beauty shoots.

Well, I don't know what she means by "dreamy" exactly... Is it about the background, the in-focus portion or something else? Of course, this also ties into how you edit and your shooting setup.

In terms of softness of out-of-focus backgrounds, there is also the Canon RF 85mm f/1.2 DS, which trades off some of the actual transmission (DOF remains the same, it's still an f/1.2) for smoothing out the out-of-focus backgrounds even more. I don't use that, since I like having the most transmission.

Similarly the Sigma 135mm f/1.8 wide open gives you a very shallow DOF (rendering the rest of the face besides the eyes softer) and your backgrounds as extremely blurred... if you are shooting wide open. If that isn't your style, though, you can step it (or the RF 85mm f/1.2) down, keep the contrast (which significantly beats the Canon 135mm)... and do some frequency separation and soften the skin, etc.

Hmmm... This made me think that when I think "senior packages", I implicitly think female seniors. I found out boys do senior photos, too. Will I need another, less dreamy lens? Only partly kidding.

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Canon EOS 5D Mark III Canon EOS R5 Canon EOS R7 Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM | A +14 more
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