A few of the Best Portrait Lenses

You can shoot a portrait with just about any lens. A fisheye will do the job though your subject may appear to have an unusually shaped head and a particularly large nose. You could also use a super-telephoto, but you’ll have to stand so far away from your subject you might need a megaphone to relay instructions.

Professional portrait photographers generally use prime (non-zoom) lenses equivalent to 85mm, 100-105mm and 135mm lengths. Used with a full-frame camera like the Canon EOS 5D, Nikon D700, or Sony A900, these are the “ideal” choices for, in turn, an upper body, head and shoulders and full-face shot.

Lets go through a few of the best portrait lenses.

Canon 85mm f/1.2 USM L II

The widest aperture out of all the portrait lenses here, Canon’s revised version II of the 85mm f/1.2 USM is best appreciated for the difference made to focusing action and speed.

Continue reading the article : A few of the Best Portrait Lenses.

Is a medium format camera right for you?

Author: Richard Kilpatrick

We evaluate the pros and cons of the Leica S2 and Pentax 645D against those of the system approach taken by Hasselblad and Phase One, asking if the increasing affordability of such cameras will finally give them wider appeal.

The last 21 years have seen dramatic change in the photographic industry, not least in the area of professional photography. When once it would have been unthinkable to work with a system essentially derived from an entry-level consumer format, APS-C digital cameras have become ubiquitous. Meanwhile, the seemingly eternal discussion about which professional medium-format system was best – with Bronica users up against Rollei, Hasselblad, Mamiya, Fujifilm, Contax and Pentax – has come to an abrupt end, highlighted by the disappearance of some of these companies.

Read More