your favourite portrait lens and why?

[daniel]

My current favourite for portraits is the 50mm 1.8 prime lens.

Pros: allows you to get close and personal and create shallow depth of fields mixed with super fast shutter speeds. This allows natural light and ambience into the photograph, soft skin tones and probably the closest colour scales to that of the human eye. Low light night shots also make great vibrant tones. For a walkaround lens when your close to the subject it works an absolute storm and its only 100 pounds from amazon, I'm definitely using this for the upcoming wedding shoot and its a lot sharper than the lenses canon give you to start with (kit lens) usually the 18-55mm lens.

Cons: this is not a zoom lens so you really are limited and will certainly have to use your mind and feet a lot more than a zoom lens. I like this as its a challenge it does however take a good getting used to not being able to zoom, manual focus is actually easier than auto focus on this lens so perhaps stick to MF and use manual or av or tv, to use auto would defeat the purpose to using the lens. Aslong as you have a zoom lens out with you then the pros outdo the few cons.

[ian]

I also love the 50mm and you rightfully stated about its limitations, you do need to use your feet as there is no zoom, what it makes up for in quality and detail kind of evens out the fact you cannot zoom. I can't actually answer your question Daniel it just so difficult. I think for portraits I would carry a 50mm aswell as various other lenses, saying that you could shoot an entire portrait session with the 50mm if it was baby or perhaps a one on one model. The limitations arrive when you stupidly take the 50mm lens unaccompanied to a big event with lots of people. So to conclude about this lens, up close and personal,one on one model,perhaps a music event I did notice you used the 50mm for your faith fest photos? And the quality was superb so I'm not entirely sure this lens is actually that limited? Maybe if you wanted to photograph the a whole room of wedding guests apposed to a few clusters of people you'd get small focusing so as you rightfully stated bring another lens for more dynamics and you can then focus on more at once. Do you shoot RAW? you seem to have the knack with lighting and respect the fact you don't use flash, I personally think flash kills the ambience I'm sure this is the reason I don't see your photographs looking burnt out or flat :)

[daniel]

I do shoot RAW indeed, it means when cropping an image or "pulling the image" forward it doesn't lose its clarity, you could blow up a RAW file to virtually any size "canvas" or "photo" and it would still look as sharp. Sometimes when you edit in aperture there's a little bug annoying you somewhere in the background so "pulling forward" on a RAW file means editing something from the far and actually see what it is you're editing, I subtly edit I'd say, an example would be a coastline I shot, the beach was completely empty and the sand was unmarked, totally silky " due to shutter combinations I exaggerated the silkyness of the sand " worked well but there was a tiny black stone in the mid of the composition, it was so tiny but if I walked to dispose of the stone I would have left footprints so I just pencilled it out to blend it in on aperture. So shooting RAW works the best for me. How about you? Do you usually shoot RAW and what SD cards are you currently using for your storage?

[peter]

I can't keep up with you 2 ;)

[ian]

Well you are going to Daniels foto club, I saw you on the other post about it

Rinse him for knowledge my friend, he's really helpful I can't go I'm from up north, never even heard of leighton buzzard before lol

[peter]

Yes I'm awaiting dates and times for it, sounds good and I really like his work. Its whether I can get time off for it, so I will see the dates and times first. Oh up north I see? My aunties from York its a great place to photograph. Although I'm only using a point and shoot at the moment so I can't get really creative until I've got a full manual camera, open question to both of you. NIKON or CANON or as my friend jokes NILON or COTTON ;)

[daniel]

Cotton although Nilon are also equally competent, its down to a lot of small preferences. Example being how it feels in your hand? It has been argued nikon shoot better outdoors and canon studio, there is so little difference its down to the photographer. Just pick up a few and see how they feel in your hand? Then the layout of the dials? Are they customisable and easy to use?then try focusing with the lens equipped, does your nose squash against the back of the body? There's a lot of things comfort is a big role. Most full manual dslrs are more than capable its just down to finishing touches you will probably base your decision on.

[ian]

Yep pretty much spot on

[daniel]

You can't blame the tools can you, its the person behind it. Canon and Nikon are amazing quality manual dslrs so it is indeed down to build,layout,comfort, the cameras performance is there ready to bring out the camera has as much potential as we do, compare canon and nikon to jaguar and austin martin (on performance not price) its down to the drivers personal tastes.comfort and its also " buying a sports car doesn't make you a good driver" "buying a canon or nikon doesn't make us a photographer" we make ourselves photographers. So make the choice from within don't be persuaded otherwise .
Obviously once chosen you will have to stick as lenses and bodies are exclusive to canon and nikon, you won't see a nikon lens on a canon body would be expensive to change over and start you're kit bag from scratch. You should buy apple mac if you havnt already. Happy buying

[peter]

Thankyou I really can see your point about the sportscar and how its down to personal taste, although they roughly do the same thing. I have got a macbook and I'm enjoying using it :), I don't want to spend loads on a camera as I'm not aiming to make it a business. Just really keen photographer :)