How important is a lens in portrait photography or any kind of photography for that matter?

How important is a lens in portrait photography or any kind of

photography for that matter? I'm fixing to purchase my first studio

strobe light kit. I got to thinking, just how important is the

lenses I use. I shoot with a canon 10D. I use a canon 75-300mm IS 4-

5.6 and a canon 28-90mm 4-5.6 lens. Will this get me those amazing

portraits I'm looking for? I know my skill level or lack there of

will have a lot to do with the out come. But I have learned a lot

from these forums on here and who better to ask than the people

producing some of the best art work I have ever laid eyes on. So I

ask YOU for your input and help. Thanks

<i>"How important is a lens in portrait photography or any kind of photography for that matter?"</i>

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Well... unless you're using a pinhole camera, I'd say a lens is extremely important for all types of photography!

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But I assume that you meant to ask a different question, such as <i>How important is <b>the</b> lens ... ?</i> To answer this, we need to know what you consider as 'amazing portraits'. Most people consider anything from 85mm to say 200mm as suitable for portraits. On your 10D, this would correspond to 50mm up to 135mm or so. Now, if an amazing photo in your mind means shallow DOF then you'd want a bright aperture lens like f/2. I hope this helped some...

The lens next to the skill of the user is by far the most important aspect to getting decent quality photos. All the skill and technology in the world is not going to get sharp portraits if the lens gives soft, distorted pictures.

 

One lens that you should definetly consider getting is the 50mm F1.8 - its less than $100 so won't break the bank and while it looks cheep and flimsy they're extremely good optically...

The lens will be more important for the picture quality than your camera.

more important to me is not the lens, but the light. when comparing an image made with a great/pro lens in shit light, compared to an image with a consumer lens in beautiful light, the beauty of the light in the consumer lens image will usually outweigh the unsharpness in it. of course beautiful light is often a subjective and personal oppinion. the other thing to concider is how big will your prints be? many (though not all) decent consumer lenses are fine up to 8x10, if you want to be making 30x20 size prints, you need more megapixels obviously, but you also need a lens capable of making use of those pixels, usually this means pro glass for that size of print. however, in saying all of that, portraits pose a need which not consumer lens i know of posesses, and that is subtle, soft and creamy out of focus renderings. the 50mm f/1.8 is a great sujestion! my 2c.

Lenses are very important, yes, but in portrait contrast and flare are more important than

sharpness. When I bought my first studio strobe light kit with light boxes and took close

portraits with my Mamiya 6x7 everybody looked old and ugly. Too sharp. Too many things

you don't want to see. Now I use even softer light and TriX and Make Up and a sharp lens.

Usually fix focus. For the 10 D you should consider the 1.7 50mm AF. Just 80$ and almost

perfect. No zoom comes close. Put a shade on it, looks better and makes it better too.

Besides the lens, the other issue is, that in digital sharpness is often produced by software.

That is very nice in architecture, but in portrait it is leading to very sharp eyes and hair,

while the skin often has almost no differentiation. That is a problem. A lot of the

emotional information is hidden in the muscles underneath the skin. That's why I think

film and a very good scan produces a better quality and I wish it would not be so time

consuming. So be very careful with sharpening. Better produce a sharp image with a good

lens and soften it.

 

Karsten

The lens is very important if you want it to be, depends what you want. The lenses in your eyes will eventually get tired and need to sleep, take a walk in the evening.

 

Cheers.

Your question: "Will this [lens] get me those amazing portraits I'm looking for?"

 

Ok, go to visit the Oaks in Oxford, MS, go upstairs and look in the left side room, immediately to the right of the door: What you will find is Faulkner's typewriter. Pretty fancy for its day, I would say.

 

It is my contention that with any lesser typewriter Faulkner could not have written his literary portraits anywhere near as well.

 

Now go figure: Amazing art requires amazing mind.

 

Have you got the eye of a Y. Karsch? of a ... Their pictures are really "old", taken with "old lenses" ... But Karsch's portraits of Churchill, Krupp, ... will beat the pants off everything ever taken with a much better lens such as your drooled over "canon 75-300mm IS 4- 5.6 and a canon 28-90mm 4-5.6 lens".

 

You must be very silly to ask your question. What kind of brushes did van Gogh use/could afford for his paintings?

 

Gear, camera or lens is absolutely irrelevant if you want to get "those amazing portraits I'm looking for". Banal portraits are much more likely. There are thousands of those on phnet already ...

 

Re. gear: for really shallow DOF in a portrait (if you like to take such shots, views), an f/1.2, f/1.4, f/2 or at least an f/2.8 lens is a must. So your two mentioned lenses both fail to give you such portraits since they are only f/4-5.6.

What is important - my take:

 

1. Photographer's skills,

 

2. Lighting,

 

3. Best lens,

 

4, The camera.

 

If only Moses had good tools, that is a typewriter or a computer with fast word processor, he could have written up 15 or 20 Commandments. But that would make our lives miserable.

Frank Uhlig

 

I agree with the points you make completely. Better equipment will not make a better photographer. That said I don't agree with telling the guy he is silly. Everyone is beginner at some point and it doesn't hurt to be polite to those that still are.

If the results are measured on a scale of 1-100 with all outside conditions the same the lens is approx 95% of the results the Camera body the other 5%

Thanks Frank Uhlig for your insight. What major talent and ability you have. Next time I need a picture of a train wheel or my kids chalk writing on the road I will call you. Thanks so much.

Instead of repeating the cliche - it's the photographer, not gear - let me just point out that the lens is WAY more important than the camera. Use a coffee can for a camera if you have to but use a good lens. The only other piece of gear of comparable importance is the tripod:-)

 

That said, a good photographer with just the coffee can will make a pihole in it and kick my several hundred dollar lens' ass!

 

-A

If you're in a major metro market, you may be able to rent something like a Canon 85mm f/1.8 or 100mm f/2.0 for a day for not too much. I'm a Nikon guy, but I think these two are pretty good lenses for not a primo amount of money.

 

Experiment with that narrow DOF, particularly under the controlled conditions of your new studio lighting. The 'isolationist' view of narrow DOF isn't for everyone, but when you start with slow zooms, you never even have a chance to see what the effect looks like.

 

The other thing those two lenses should do for you (assuming they approximate roughly the quality of Nikon glass) is give you some fast glass for available light. (If they're as good as I think, they should be pretty good even wide open.) Available light is a whole 'nother world, allowing really interesting shooting by window light, maybe with a touch of reflector fill.

 

And sorry, I don't have a portfolio here for you to make fun of (but then again, I hope I wasn't rude to begin with......)

<em>"...I agree with the points you make completely. Better equipment will not make a better photographer. That said I don't agree with telling the guy he is silly..."</em><p>

Amen.

Bob and Todd, thanks so much for being considerate. I know I have a lot to learn. And Todd, no you were not rude. I have a lot of respect for people that will help a person like me that is ingnorant because of my lack of knowledge. That is why I'm here to start with. I thought I could learn from the people here. Thank You 2 again.

One more thing, Louie:

 

As you shop around for studio lighting, pay some attention to adjustable output. It seems like a lot of folks 'size' their two light setup for doing 'altar shots' of groups of ten at f/8 or so.

 

If you can't dial them down significantly, then when you get them back in your basement with light-to-subject distances of six feet, you find you can't get down to anywhere near f/2; you're 'trapped' at f/11 and above.

 

This happened to a buddy of mine. I'm no expert on studio lighting, I just learned enough about it so I could sell basic kits 20-odd years ago.

"How important is a lens in portrait photography or any kind of photography for that matter?"<br>

 

How important is the pen to writing? The photographer is the most important element followed by the lens. All light must pass though the lens before it arrives inside your camera. It is normal to spend more on lenses than you ever do on bodies.

frankly, if you're in a small space, wireless TTL flash dedicated to your camera is the way to

go, Studio lights are way overpowered for smaller spaces.

When photographic equipment is dicussed, someone always comes up with the supposedly clever thought that it does not matter whether a writer uses an old typewriter or modern PC, or even a quill pen. This is true for writing, but not for photography! Words do not change their meaning or nuances at all regardless of how they are written. The final book will look exactly the same. This is not so with photography. The final printed image will be totally different if it is exposed by a pinhole camera, a Holga, a cheap 35 mm lens or a good medium format lens. Once the image is exposed, nothing can be done later to bring additional detail to the image. This is even mode important now with digital cameras. Before, the lens (and film size) was the most important determinant of quality. Now we have to add the imaging chip to that equation. Sure, good and bad images can be made with all kinds of equipment. But it is just silly to think that the equipment does not matter at all.

 

Portrait lens does not generally need to be super sharp. Often a slight softening is actually more flattering to the subject. Narrow depth of field is often useful especially outdoors, requiring large apertures. But in a studio setting, the background can be better controlled and smaller apertures are often used, around 5.6-11. Thus both your lenses should work very well for studio portraits. I would suggest using those lenses for a while and then deciding yourself whether you need something different.