Which lens gives the better modelling for portraits?

haremlover · Post by **haremlover** » Sat Sep 14, 2019 1:30 pm

I've got two lenses I use for portraits, one a modern automagic lens which is hard to nail down to what one wants it to do and another around 40 or 50 years old which is distinctly manual and hard to use in a different way.

Old manual lens

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Modern automagic lens

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So 1.

And 2.

This is an SM face, by the way - I refer to her as the footballer's wife . . .

Best wishes

Harem

Zippy81 · Post by **Zippy81** » Sat Sep 14, 2019 2:11 pm

I like the softness of the old lens pics personally.. but the depth/clarity of the new lens is nice too.. but if I had to chose it would be old.

Metricnut · Post by **Metricnut** » Sat Sep 14, 2019 2:46 pm

The 2nd automatic lens has better focus for all 3 shot presented.
The older manual lens has slightly more blown out background suggesting a more open aperture, or faster lens.

Focus is always priority one. 2nd lens is the way to go.

edit: I forgot to mention, Nice lighting

haremlover · Post by **haremlover** » Sat Sep 14, 2019 2:54 pm

The principal difference is focal length, the old lens designed for full frame is longer than the equivalent modern lens, thus the smaller depth of field and throwing more out of focus. Being manual one can control what it's focusing on more tightly whereas the automagic lens has more of a mind of its own.

Best wishes

Harem

haremlover · Post by **haremlover** » Sat Sep 14, 2019 10:26 pm

Metricnut wrote: edit: I forgot to mention, Nice lighting

Thanks - yes - I try to light to bring out the sculpture of the face so that one has a good idea of the sort of character of the person, to bring the doll alive.

Best wishes

Harem

Agalmatoreveur · Post by **Agalmatoreveur** » Sun Sep 15, 2019 12:05 am

Those images taken with the auto focus lens are all soft. Are you saying the auto focus doesn't work, or you don't know how to make it do what you want? You should really be shooting fully manual if you want control. Which camera body is this?

haremlover · Post by **haremlover** » Sun Sep 15, 2019 5:51 am

I'm using a Nikon D90 having upgraded from the D70 and the Fuji S9600 and only just seen the AF and M switch . . .

so will try again to see how it behaves. Even then the two lenses will be a hair's breadth away. The advantage of the D90 is having a real-time view on the screen so that one can monitor colour balance and exposure behaviour. Both D90s and D3000s and D3100s seem to be very good value on ebay at the moment and whilst less versatile the Coolpix L110 can be picked up for next to nothing.

Overall however, the Fuji S9600 which I've used mainly exclusively to date is very much a go-to camera doing everything required of it with ease.

Best wishes

Harem

curiousswede · Post by **curiousswede** » Sun Sep 15, 2019 8:48 am

You wanna use a lense that in 35mm frame factor becomes 70-85mm for that nice "telephoto bokeh" and it also makes faces look much better in photos assuming good lighting is used.

haremlover · Post by **haremlover** » Sun Sep 15, 2019 1:16 pm

Yes - the second lens is 50mm which translates to 75 to 85 or so mm and the old lens is a 85 which translates to 110 to 120 or so. I like working with the longer lens but wondering if it's flattening the sculpture too much?

Best wishes

Harem

Agalmatoreveur · Post by **Agalmatoreveur** » Mon Sep 16, 2019 5:05 am

haremlover wrote:Yes - the second lens is 50mm which translates to 75 to 85 or so mm and the old lens is a 85 which translates to 110 to 120 or so. I like working with the longer lens but wondering if it's flattening the sculpture too much?

Best wishes

Harem

I thought the older lens was longer - to answer your question about the longer lens flattening the sculpt, that would be no. If anything, the opposite is the case. You should ditch the 50, as it's distorting the face.

You could shoot with a 500 mm lens, and it won't flatten the sculpt. The only danger is too wide, not too long.

85mm should be the minimum lens for shooting portraits, even with a cropped sensor. Don't be caught up with all those myths that a lens becomes exactly like a longer one on a cropped sensor, that's not really how it works. The lens is going to behave like its actual focal length no matter what the sensor. The difference is that with a cropped sensor, you're only seeing the middle of the image, which is why it appears closer, since that middle occupies your whole sensor.

I should add that when I said to shoot fully manual, I didn't mean manual focus. I meant auto focus, but set the focus point manually - making sure that there's only one point. That way you're at least stopping the camera doing what it wants to some of the time - although it may still try to front or back focus :F.

haremlover · Post by **haremlover** » Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:01 am

Thanks and thanks for confirmation on thoughts on focal length.

I've found that using the old manual lens I can have more control as well as bring better standardisation to the three portraits. The reason for this is that in manual mode there is a green dot that lights up that indicates focus in the Nikon, so I can move backwards and forwards retaining the focus setting so that each photo is guaranteed to be at the same distance. And it makes it easy to check focus on one eye and check that the other eye is still in focus. The automagic functions really don't achieve it.

Best wishes

Harem

Post by **lilbitlonely** » Mon Sep 16, 2019 11:35 am

haremlover wrote:The advantage of the D90 is having a real-time view on the screen so that one can monitor colour balance and exposure behaviour.

If you are shooting indoors and have a decent flat-screen television, you might like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005H ... UTF8&psc=1 to transfer your camera screen onto the television screen. I recently purchased one for my D90... it takes things to a whole new level.

secretagentman · Post by **secretagentman** » Mon Sep 16, 2019 5:34 pm

Longer lenses decrease the DOF creating better separation between subject and ground but they're harder to nail the focus. With that said, some of the most iconic fashion photographers used the equivalent of a 44mm lens in the 1940s-1960s so don't let focal length hamstring your compositions. Remember, "zoom with your feet".

Yes, all your pics are soft - the D90 is actually blurry showing classic traits of camera shake either due to being handheld or from mirror slap or both. Your Fuji is mirrorless which eliminates one of these. Tripods don't eliminate the effects of a mirror nor do they completely eliminate camera shake transferred from your hands. In order to get a closer apples to apples comparison, use a stiff tripod and mirror-lock your D90 after composition (does it have it?). Set a short self-timer for both cameras and then trip the shutter. I only say this because you only use ambient lighting. If you used a flash or other aux sources, the above methods are less applicable. One caveat is that using the self timer kills your battery life but it does ensure the sharpest possible image from your setup.

I won't get into the AA filter or in-camera processing since you have no control over these...

Lastly, manual focus without focus peaking and/or focus magnification is pretty difficult especially with longer and faster lenses. You may be able to get by with the crude focus scale on your older lens but only if you stop down (ie f/5.6 or greater)

HTH

doll-o-grapher · Post by **doll-o-grapher** » Tue Jan 21, 2020 11:14 am

haremlover wrote:Being manual one can control what it's focusing on more tightly whereas the automagic lens has more of a mind of its own.

Not quite - there's no brain for focusing in any lens, that's in the camera body. I'd suggest changing the number of focus points the camera is using, or use spot focus by focusing and then re-framing without releasing from the half-press for focus, then full press once you're framed.
You may also want to try Face Detection instead of multi-point focus.

Personally, I always end up on classic manual lenses for portraits, and new glass only for corporate work - newer lenses are more contrasty and overall sharper, with most being slower aperture then a lot of older compact manual primes.

Reading the other suggestion,.. yup, use a tripod - the models not in a rush,...

And 85mm thru 135mm are the traditional 'portrait' lengths for Full Frame lenses. Shooting longer through the smaller sensor will have no negative effects, except for shake from the mirror and your hand pressing the shutter if handheld - using a 2 second delay on the shutter means you can press the button and take your hand off the camera before it fires, reducing shake to only the shutter.

On a mirrorless, if the Electronic Shutter function works with a flash, that will give you the most rock-steady operation.

If you have to shoot handheld, learn to hold your breath after breathing out, when you do so, not only is your chest not moving 9or the arms mounted to the top of your chest) but your heart will also slow a little, removing it's shake from your body.

And, yes, the shake from a heartbeat can affect stills photos, from about 100mm up,... having done some portraits handheld on an APSc mirrorless with no EVF at 400mm, slowing the breathing and heart rate can have a massive impact at those longer focal lengths.

Also for handheld, one hand under the lens, one on the grip of the body, elbows tucked in to the base of the ribs

haremlover · Post by **haremlover** » Tue Jan 21, 2020 11:47 am

Yes - all good tips for breathing and keeping still and elbow stability.

Yes - but with

as the target, using a tripod is out of the question other than three tripods with a quick release to go from one to another - and then that doesn't allow for slight changes of angle to show slightly different aspects of the face.

The advantage of manual focus with in my case a Nikon D90 is that there's a green dot in the corner of the screen which comes on when the subject is in focus. This means that one can move forward or back till the green dot lights, on one eye and then the other and then move between the two, and this assures that one's taking the photo from each angle with each hair colour from exactly the same distance. Using automagic focus won't confine one to that positioning accuracy, and therefore more difficult to achieve standardisation.

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As a result of using the same manual lens with the same settings, we're beginning to see photos providing a comparator with a degree of standardisation.

Best wishes

Harem