Top portrait lens

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

For conveniece I'd pick the 70-200 f2.8 mkII

For pure "rendering" I'd get the 135 f2 or the 200mm f2.8

TyphoonTW wrote:

For conveniece I'd pick the 70-200 f2.8 mkII

For pure "rendering" I'd get the 135 f2 or the 200mm f2.8

+1. Yeah, I'd agree with this. For sheer flexibility and overall usefulness, the 70-200 f/2.8L IS II is hard to beat. But the bokeh is better on the other lenses if you are into that stuff.

For me, it would be

1. 85mm f1.2L II.

2. Zeiss 135mm f2 APO

3. 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM II

If its versatility, then the order will be

1. 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM II

2. 85mm f1.2L II

3. Zeiss 135mm f2 APO

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!

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!

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.

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

The 70-200 at under $2,000 is a gift...

One of the best portrait lenses in the business...  I can't think of a better tool if you only have one lens. It offers the best at 70 all the way to 200 with accurate profiles for post production from all primary editors.  The clarity, contrast, lack of distortion, IS and 2.8 across all ranges is amazing.   This a MUST have lens for any professional.

In my kit... in order of best to worst:

1) 70-200 f/2.8L IS II: versatility, sharpness, and nice bokeh.

2) 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro: For headshots, you can get very close, and the background is quite blurred (more so than I expected) with nice bokeh and great sharpness.

3) 35mm f/1.4L II: for environmental portraits. Sharp, sharp, and sharp!

4) 24-70 f/2.8L II: beautiful color rendition, versatility.  Not a lot of blur in most cases,

5) 85mm f/1.8: Decent lens, but lots of CA. Color seems a little flat.

6) 50mm f/1.4: Decent lens, color seems a little flat.

I would like to eventually add the 50mm f/1.2L (I've used before, and very nice for eg. wedding portraits), and maybe an 85mm (either Sigma's new f/1.4 Art, or hopefully a Canon f/1.2 III or f/1.4)

Kaso wrote:

diness wrote:

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.

You argued because I thought I was against your post. Actually, if you cool down a bit, you may see that I understand what you were trying to do -- and my last post was meant to support it. Oh well... Life is short, man, and it's a fresh new year.

If you read the reply title of my first post in this thread, you can relate to what I was saying.

Anyway, "it's just a poll," as you said. No biggie.

Sorry for the misconception!  I'm not mad about it either.  I guess internet communication isn't so helpful soemetimes.  I get what you're saying and if I went back and did it again I would probably just say what's the best outdoor portrait lens under $2k.  Oh well!

BAK wrote:

Sorry, but photography's too hard, and time's too valuable, to spend much time on bad questions.

Then don't.   There is no requirement to respond to every thread.   If I were doing it again, I would rephrase the question, but oh well, it is what it is I suppose.  Thanks for the thoughts!

But, allowing for the range the question requires, pretty much the only answer for a serious professional photographer expected to shoot to the satisfaction of an unknown client, photographing an unknown subject, in an unknown location, for an unknown purpose, on a so-called full frame camera, is some 24 - 105 mm lens.

A good photographer could come back from almost any open-ended and vaguely specced assignment with a magazine cover, an over-fireplace 16x20, a LinkedIn profile shot, or a website portrait of an owner of a business that operates outdoors, with a 24-105.

And there could be just one head, at 105mm, or four standing people and enough of a 100 ft. yacht to be interesting and informative, at 24mm.

And if a photographer just wants to go out with a friend and mess around, the photographer could pick one lens each Saturday for three montns.

BAK

Assuming I am able to select the distance, and know I will have enough room, 135L. If the distance is unknown, it would be prudent to bring a 70-200/2.8 lens.