[Miserere]

And to think we Scots had the "auld alliance" with the French

Ben is Canadian

[Class A]

You can take portrait shots with anything that can blur out the background, to separate your subject from everything else.

You can, but the perspective distortion from focal lengths ~<85mm will create funny faces. The nearer you are, the more the face will become a caricature of itself. You are almost getting away with the effect on your second shot, but it is noticeable and not many women would be happy with it.

R U kidding?

Not any more so than the multitude of sources that see the classic portrait focal length range ~ between 85mm and 135mm.

It is the perfect focal length for portraiture in my humble opinion.

I'm not going to argue with an accomplished, talented and professional artist as you are, but perhaps you have that opinion because you are going for certain effects. In your sample shot, her forehead is too pronounced to look natural. Her eyes are enlarged and her mouth appears to be smaller. That's fine for art, but if someone ordered a flattering portrait, I think they'd be expecting something less distorted.

I love your image with which you started this thread but I think part of the reason it works, despite the slightly too short FL, is because of the large shadow area (avoiding distortion of nearer parts of her face).

Anyone arguing that portraits taken with longer FLs are boring, that's fine with me, yet this doesn't invalidate the fact that the closer you get, the more you have to incorporate distortion as part of the message or artistic impression.

[Kerrowdown]

Thanks Miserere, that may explain his reluctance to let my join.

[benjikan]

Ben is Canadian

That's right. Born in Toronto. No French in my ancestry that I am aware of.

[Duh_Vinci]

This image is really BREATH TAKING!!!

Bravo!

Ben

Thank you very much for the comments, specially when it comes from from and accomplished artist who's creative work I admire!

Regards,
D

[carpediem007]

Not wanting to be accused of thread hijack, I just wanted to say that I don’t have a 50mm f1.4

I do however own it’s slightly faster cousin (f1:1.2) and love it to bits, can I be considered as an honorary member of the f1.4 club.

NO

To bad...

I love my K50 1.2 too much to switch to a 1.4...

I'll have to pass on that club then.

1/350@1.8

[benjikan]

To bad...

I love my K50 1.2 too much to switch to a 1.4...

I'll have to pass on that club then.

1/350@1.8

Forget about the lens...She is really pretty.

[carpediem007]

Forget about the lens...She is really pretty.

You can borrow the lens anytime; don't know about her though

Had her in front of my camera only once for some ten seconds during a workshop

But thanks a million for commenting...

Cheers, Michael

[philbaum]

Ben, great thread. perhaps this is the thread that talked me into buying the FA 50 1.4 a few weeks ago.

Great photos above, one and all, I just hope there is no restriction against using the 50 for a landscape image :-)



thanks for the inspiration to buy this lens!!!!!

[netuser]

Hi

Everyone is using the FA 50mm 1.4 as portrait since on Dslr is equal to 75mm, right ?

[Class A]

Everyone is using the FA 50mm 1.4 as portrait

No.

on Dslr is equal to 75mm, right ?

Yes.
75mm is close to a classic portrait focal length.

I think the Nokton 58mm should be better suited for portraits. Better FL, better bokeh. Thoughts anyone?

[CFWhitman]

Well it's true that a lot of people like something closer to 85mm on 35mm equivalent. Thus we see the new DA* 55mm f/1.4 SDM. However, I have never really heard a hard and fast low end for a normal portrait length lens. I have heard people say 70mm to 135mm or even 70mm to 150mm before as well.

For practical purposes, I judge by the shots that you can get. I have seen plenty of 50mm on APS-C and 75mm on 35mm portraits with no discernible perspective distortion, so it certainly seems possible to use them as portrait lenses. Of course it changes exactly what effects you'll get at what angles and distances, but this is always true when you switch focal lengths.

[soccerjoe5]

The 58 would give you a bit more of that flattening/flattering characteristic that you were looking for, Class A. It's closer to the 85mm FOV but not as flattening/flattering as the perspective an 85mm lens gives.

[CFWhitman]

The 58 would give you a bit more of that flattening/flattering characteristic that you were looking for, Class A. It's closer to the 85mm FOV but not as flattening/flattering as the perspective an 85mm lens gives.

Does that seem to be the case to you? To be honest, by what I've seen, perspective distortion seems entirely dependent on field of view, so a 50mm lens on an APS-C camera would have the same amount of it as a 75mm lens on a 35mm camera, and a 58mm on APS-C would have about the same as (technically slightly less than) an 85mm on 35mm, etc. That is, unless you just mean that an 85mm lens will always be more "flattening/flattering" than a 58mm on the same camera, in which case I can't really argue.

Of course shooting with a 50mm lens on an APS-C camera is not the same as shooting with a 75mm lens on a 35mm camera because the 75mm lens will have shallower depth of field than the 50mm at the same aperture, but that's another issue.

Another thought on the original point: It seems that perspective distortion wouldn't usually get to the point of seeming odd until you exceeded "normal" perspective (that is, around 32 mm on APS-C or 48mm on 35mm, plus or minus a few mm) with your field of view. Of course that doesn't mean that reducing perspective distortion to less than that of normal vision isn't often a good idea. :-)

[soccerjoe5]

Does that seem to be the case to you? To be honest, by what I've seen, perspective distortion seems entirely dependent on field of view, so a 50mm lens on an APS-C camera would have the same amount of it as a 75mm lens on a 35mm camera, and a 58mm on APS-C would have about the same as (technically slightly less than) an 85mm on 35mm, etc. That is, unless you just mean that an 85mm lens will always be more "flattening/flattering" than a 58mm on the same camera, in which case I can't really argue.

Of course shooting with a 50mm lens on an APS-C camera is not the same as shooting with a 75mm lens on a 35mm camera because the 75mm lens will have shallower depth of field than the 50mm at the same aperture, but that's another issue.

Another thought on the original point: It seems that perspective distortion wouldn't usually get to the point of seeming odd until you exceeded "normal" perspective (that is, around 32 mm on APS-C or 48mm on 35mm, plus or minus a few mm) with your field of view. Of course that doesn't mean that reducing perspective distortion to less than that of normal vision isn't often a good idea. :-)

Yup I got you there, it's not a bad idea to get that "perspective distortion". In fact I love it. I find that flatter/normal/classic portrait lengths of around 85mm boring. Flattering/"nicer", but boring for me.

But on the point of perspective distortion on FOV, they are entirely independent on each other. There's a bit more "distortion" on the 58 than shooting with an 85, or rather the 85 will look flatter which happens to be flattering for portraits. The 85 will always look flatter than the 58, disregarding the DOF. Even if the 58 provides a FOV similar to the 85 in a 35mm/FF cam, in the end it's still a 58mm that's cropped to the FOV of the 85 on the 35mm/FF.

One reason why I like using UWA on APS-C DLSRs is that there's more of that "perspective distortion" that on a FF (that's completely subjective as to it being "better"). Less flattering for shooting people but I love it on creating some real dynamic landscape shots. Things that are near (for example on my 10-20 back when I was using a Nikon) looked really in-your-face and things further back looked really faaaar.