As the name implies, a portrait lens is one that is used to take portraits and gives it certain advantages for the photographer. In fact, despite the widespread belief, as such, "portrait" lenses do not exist. That is, manufacturers, releasing a lens, do not specifically rely on it for any particular type of shooting. Therefore, often a lot of debate arises about what should be the best portrait lens. At the same time, the fact that all photographers shoot under different conditions is absolutely not taken into account, each of them has its own characteristic style and its priorities. Therefore, in this article we will consider the characteristics of the lenses most commonly used for portraiture.
The very first and main characteristic of any lens is its
aperture. Aperture is indicated by f, which carries information on the maximum aperture. It's simple: the wider the aperture of your lens will be open, the more light will fall on the matrix, the more its aperture. The smaller the number f, the wider the diaphragm can open. The portrait lens should have high aperture, which will allow you to create clear details, which is extremely important in
portrait shooting. For example, the
Canon EF 85mm f / 1.2 portrait
lens is considered one of the most indicative by this criterion and significantly surpasses many others.
To choose a portrait lens, it’s important to decide which focal length you use most often. It is well known that for shooting portraits it is better to use fixes (i.e. lenses with an unchanged focal length), rather than zoom lenses, since they have a higher aperture due to the lack of a block of lenses responsible for approximation. Many professionals believe that a portrait lens should have a focal length of 50 to 200 mm. Moreover, a greater
focal length gives a more beautiful bokeh - blur pattern - and implies a greater distance between the photographer and the model. That is, if you are shooting in a small studio, then a 200 mm portrait lens is useless for you. You can, of course, opt for a zoom lens to be able to adjust the distance from the camera to the model to your taste, but its use will require good lighting. In addition, a good zoom lens is usually more expensive than a fix.
Secondary but equally important characteristics are the presence of an image stabilization system and the type of focus.
The image stabilizer compensates for camera shake, so it will never be superfluous. Focusing is a little trickier. It is better, of course, to choose a lens with two types of focusing - manual and automatic. If, suppose you are accustomed to using only manual, it is still worth remembering that sometimes spontaneous situations happen when manually looking for focus is simply long or uncomfortable.
So, before choosing a lens for portraits, decide how you plan to use it. And, depending on what exactly you need, prioritize yourself and determine the most optimal characteristics. This will allow you to narrow your search, and also not to doubt the correctness of your choice.