Originally posted by Lowell Goudge I agree in principle, ignoring other focal lengths like the 105's 120's and 135's is like saying what is the best hand gun ever, and restricting the selection to one caliber.
Lowell is so right. Back-in-the-day, for 35mm, a portrait lens meant any short to medium tele with reasonably large maximum aperture, That usually meant some where between 70mm and 135mm with f/2.8 at the long end and f/2 or wider at the short end of the range. The intent was to provide:
- Reasonable working distance to avoid freaking the model
- Adequate working distance to ensure low anisomorphic distortion
- Shallow DOF
Good bokeh was usually not a concern. (Heck, I never even heard the term "bokeh" until well into the digital age.) Photographers would often use soft focus or doughnut filters to even out skin tones and give the photo that dreamy look, hence lenses like the 85/2.8 Soft
Taking the same intent and applying it to APS-C digital SLRs and you get the focal length range of about 45mm to 85mm. The great news is that the classic 50mm lens fits the criteria perfectly. You don't need to plunk down the big $$$ for the 77/1.8 Limited. A Pentax-M 50/1.7 for a fraction of the cost will do quite nicely.
Again...there is really no such thing as a dedicated portrait lens.
Steve