Lens for Portraits

<p>What would be a decent, not too expensive lens for portraits using my Cambo 4X5 ? Thanks in advance. </p>

<p>Do you like sharp or soft? I use anything from 210 to 300 for portraits. Many of hte 1980's era plasmats can be had for a decent price, but they are sharp. They can be softened with filters... or shop around for a real soft-focus lens.</p>

<p>If you are into environmental portraits you can consider FLs like 150 or 135mm.</p>

<p>Soft focus lens Fujinon SF 250mm for $250-300 makes very good portraits.</p>

<p>hi harry</p>

<p>it all depends on what kind of portraits you want to make. <br />any lens can be sharp or soft, you probably don't need to buy anything new ...</p>

<p>Get an old Tessar 210/4.5. Wide open, they are wonderful for portraits and they are common and cheap. Stop them down a bit and they are nice and sharp. They can be had for way under $100 all the time.</p>

<p>IMO, there is no such thing as a "lens for portraits". It all depends on what kind of portraits (in terms of framing) you want to take, and what you like (in terms of subject-to-camera distance). IMO, generally, portraits should be shot from 6 to 10 ft (1.8 to 3.0 m) from the subject. While a 150 or possibly 210mm might be fine for full-length or three-quarters portraits, and a 135mmm a better choice for environmental portraits, if you want head-and-shoulders portraits, you want 300mm or a little longer (say, a 360mm), and if you really like tight head shots, maybe even a 500mm telephoto. But of course, that is for <em>my</em> taste. Lots of people shoot portraits with shorter lenses / shorter subject-to-camera distances. It's not what I prefer, but some people like the effect.</p>

<p>Put it this way: what portrait lens focal length would you want on a 35mm or "full-frame" digital? Now take that figure and multiply it by 3.5 to 4. That's about the focal length you want. Out to the 300 to 360mm range, there are some lenses that I'd call "not too expensive". Past that, they tend to get pricier.</p>

 

<p>6 to 10 feet? Are you shy or afraid of your models, Dave? :)</p>

<p>Brian, usually the portraits I take are of my family, so not <em>too</em> much! Actually, in certain types of fashion etc., the camera-to-subject distances can be much more. I seem to recall reading an account of some big-name fashion photographer using a 300mm lens on a 35mm camera! (And that would be like using a 1200mm lens on a 4x5.)</p>

<p>When you get much closer than about 6 ft, to me (and many others), the perspective gets unpleasant: with head shots, noses look bigger and more bulbous, ears recede into the background, the facial shape become more pumpkin-like. With full-length portraits, you get similar issues, compounded by the problems of either shooting at eye level (and having the body taper away) or shooting at mid-body level (and therefore looking up the nose and under the chin). But that's just my opinion--anyone is free to have a different one.</p>

 

<p>I'd use 240 or 300mm. There are tables (even on google :) that will let you cross compare 35mm with MF or LF. Anyway, as pretty much everything....it's your taste in how tight you want the shots.</p>

<p>Les</p>

<p>Thanks for the respnses I already have a 135mm and a 210. I find I have to be pretty up close to my subject with both lenses. I was looking for something where I could be at least 10 feet back and still fill the frame on a 3/4 portait. Maybe a 300mm might do but that still might be to short ? </p>

<p>According to this chart I need about a 300mm, since my range for shooting portraits with an 135 SLR is usually 85-110mm.<br>

<strong>Approximate equivalents of lens focal length</strong></p>

<table border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="2">

<tbody>

<tr>

<td><strong>35mm</strong></td>

<td><strong>4x5</strong></td>

<td><strong>8x10</strong></td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>20mm</td>

<td>65mm</td>

<td>120mm</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>24mm</td>

<td>75mm</td>

<td>155mm</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>28mm</td>

<td>90mm</td>

<td>200mm</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>35mm</td>

<td>115mm</td>

<td>240mm</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>45mm</td>

<td>150mm</td>

<td>300mm</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>52mm</td>

<td>180mm</td>

<td>360mm</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>63mm</td>

<td>210mm</td>

<td>420mm</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>90mm</td>

<td>300mm</td>

<td>600mm</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>105mm</td>

<td>360mm</td>

<td>720mm</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>135mm</td>

<td>480mm</td>

<td>900mm</td>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

<p><em>I was looking for something where I could be at least 10 feet back and still fill the frame on a 3/4 portait.</em></p>

<p>That's easy enough to calculate. Assuming a 6 ft tall subject, standing, with 3/4 of the subject in the frame, and 1 ft of space above the subject, the field of view as to be 5.5 ft tall at 10 ft. For that your 210mm ought to be about right. To focus a regular 210mm at 10 ft, your bellows would be around 226 mm, and your field of view would be about 5.4 ft high (and about 4.2 ft wide). If you want to shoot a 5 ft tall subject, by the same calculations you'd need about a 240mm lens. If we go with your "at least", and say that there are also 270, 300, and 305mm lenses out there, which would put the camera farther back for similar framing.</p>

<p><em>According to this chart I need about a 300mm, since my range for shooting portraits with an 135 SLR is usually 85-110mm.</em></p>

<p>For 85mm that's about right, at typical portrait distances; for 110mm, it would be more like a 360mm. Any comparison needs to recognize that most people crop 35mm or DSLR to 4:5 proportions for almost any decent-size prints. Assuming prints of 8x10, 11x14, 16x20, or 24x30 inches, and a subject-to-camera distance of about 7 ft, then the above figures apply. With the 4x5, as you get past 10 ft, you might need slightly longer lenses to fill the frame.</p>

<p>And again, for practical purposes, just take the 35mm focal length and multiply by 3.5 for portrait distances to 4.0 for infinity to see what lens you need for a 4x5.</p>

 

<p>As I do my research I noticed that some of the cheaper 300mm lenses are F9. Wow I thought F5.6 was bad enough. There are some used 300mm f5.6 lenses, but these are in the 600-800 dollar range and those are the cheaper ones ! The price goes down if the lens comes without a shutter. Also some lenses are marked 'T' for telephoto as opposed to 300mm normal lens so I'm not sure which one would best fit my purposes. KEH list most of the 300mm on it's site as 8X10 lenses, does this mean you can't use them on a 4X5 ? </p>

<p>Going in order: as lenses get longer, the larger maximum apertures get impractical, or at least make the lenses big, heavy, and expensive. Example: the front element of a 300mm f/5.6 has to be at least 53mm wide; for a 300mm f/9, you can reduce that to 33mm; guess which is bigger, heavier, and more expensive to manufacture for a given level of quality!</p>

<p>As far as the price going down without a shutter: sure, but unless you already have an <em>appropriate</em> shutter (the standard ones come in three or four different sizes, and you need the right size for the lens), you will need to get one, and really, an appropriate lensboard, or else you will have a major PITA changing lenses. So usually you're better off buying a lens already containing an appropriate shutter.</p>

<p>As for telephoto lenses: the longer the lens, the longer the bellows you need <em>unless</em> it is a telephoto design (i.e., the effective focal length is less than the actual photo length). On my monorail, any conventional lens of more than about 360mm could not focus reasonably close, so if I want a 500mm, I'd need a telephoto lens. But for many cameras (check yours), you probably don't need a telephoto lens for a 300mm.</p>

<p>Finally: you can use '8x10' lenses on a 4x5. They have more coverage, which generally makes them bigger, heavier, and more expensive, all else being equal. But really, this is much more of an issue for wide-angle lenses; on an 8x10, a 300mm lens is basically a normal lens, and most modern 300mm lenses suitable for a 4x5 will also cover 8x10. So don't worry about this designation.</p>

 

<p>Thanks for the information Dave, but at F9 wouldn't that affect the DOF or Bokeh or does it really matter ? </p>

<p>IMO, the main disadvantage of the f/9 lenses is that unless the subject is brightly lit, the image on the groundglass will be dark, making it more difficult to compose and focus. Would it affect DoF? Only if you shoot wide open or nearly so. I suspect with 4x5's, the most common taking apertures are probably f/16 and f/22. Obviously if you want to shoot wide open, f/5.6 is 1.3 stops more open than f/9. But even f/9 on a 4x5 has about the depth of field of f/2.2 on a 35mm, so unless you like those portraits where the eyes are sharp and the ears are very blurred (I don't!), you will probably be using f/11, f/16, or maybe even f/22 anyway. Bokeh is the character or quality of the out-of-focus areas, especially highlights, and is not necessarily determined by the maximum aperture; you may or may not like the bokeh of the f/9 lens better than that of the f/5.6 lens.</p>

 

<p>"<em>Obviously if you want to shoot wide open, f/5.6 is 1.3 stops more open than f/9. But even f/9 on a 4x5 has about the depth of field of f/2.2 on a 35mm</em>"<br>

Fantastic thank you !</p>