Probably the only telephoto-zoom you’ll ever need. This lens provides a great portrait focal length and has the added ability of taking stunning macro (close-up) shots such as wedding rings, cakes and bouquets. It’s an extremely sharp lens, for both your photos and on your wallet. Every photographer should look into getting this or a similar lens.Ĭonsidered by some to be the best portrait lens ever made by Nikon. Look for equivalents made by your manufacturer of choice.Ī great lens for an unbeatable price.
Remember, longer focal lengths combined with wide apertures exaggerate the blurred backgrounds that nicely isolate the subject from the distracting background details. Longer focal lengths, all the way up to 200mm are great if you have the room maneuver. This of course all depends on the type of portraiture being taken. Because of the 1.6x crop that occurs with smaller sensor cameras, a small sensor equivalent might be the 50mm lens.
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For 35mm film and full frame cameras, 85mm is often described as the best portrait focal length. In order to accomplish this you need a lens with enough magnification to let you stand at least that distance from the subject, but not so far that you have to shout in order to communicate. (Of coarse when it comes to photography, rules are more like loose guidelines, as you often want to achieve a certain look that falls outside of the norm.) So in short, to avoid unwanted foreshortening and achieve natural looking perspectives of facial features or body parts, a good rule of thumb is to try and shoot portraits from a distance of around 3-4 meters or 10-15 feet. There seems to be a sweet spot in which images appear most pleasing to the human eye.
After filling out a questionnaire on each image, it was discovered that closer portraits gave a subtly more soft and intimate tone, while shots taken at further distance made the subject appear stronger or firm in nature. I came across one scientifically developed study on the topic, which involved showing similar compositions taken at different focal lengths to a sample of reviewers. Even small changes in the position of your camera can change the overall feel of your image. The famous “big nose, tiny ears” look may not go over well with a bride (unless she has a small nose, big ears complex). The problem you can run into however is this same effect manifesting itself where you don’t want it. This phenomenon is sometimes called foreshortening and can be used for some very cool creative effects. The closer the subject gets to the lens of the camera the more exaggerated this distortion becomes. You already know that if you put on a wide-angle lens and shoot your subject up close, it appears enormous in relation to everything in its surroundings. One of the more technical aspects of portrait photography, and perhaps a new concept for beginners, is the importance of camera-to-subject distance and its relationship with the focal length of your lens. I hope that others will share suggestions in the comments on makes and models not included here.įirst things first, every wedding photographer needs a good portrait lens. Some of the information I present here is Nikon specific, only because that is what I have experience shooting with. Without asserting that it’s the equipment that makes a good photographer, here I hope to present some basic suggestions and let you take it from there. There is no perfect wedding kit and every photographer will swear by this lens or that camera body.
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The problem is, when researching how to invest that hard earned cash, you get a different answer from as many photographers as you choose to ask. Now you want to know what gear the pros are using so you can start building your own formidable wedding arsenal. So you’re serious about stepping into wedding photography, you’ve starting getting experience and your portfolio is growing. Charles is a Nikon guy so this is reflected in his recommendations for Wedding Photography lenses (although a lot of his advice applies to others also) – but we’d love to hear your suggestions for other brands in comments below also!Ĭhoosing the Right Lenses for Wedding Photography Today he follows this up by looking at how to choose the right lens for Wedding Photography. Recently Charles Clawson from wrote a post here on DPS called Stepping into Wedding Photography.