[Jonathan Mac]

I've never understood the "softness is good for portraiture" idea, I find that soft portraits look as bad as a soft photo of any other type.

Softening in PP is the best solution if you feel it's needed, but from what I've seen it's very easy to go over the top and make people look like they're made of plastic.

[Rondec]

Maybe use a skin softening brush in Lightroom? (Just remember that details that you can see at 100 percent zoomed in aren't going to be visible at most printed/viewing sizes without a loupe).

[robbiec]

I would love to show examples but a Gentleman would not do that Suffice to say that the resolution of details is brutal!

Not a hope i'm smearing Vaseline on the front element but will look into that B+W filter Sandy mentioned if I was to use it in a portraiture scenario.

I'm more concerned about the upcoming HD D FA*85/1.4, potentially it will have the same resolving capabilities which means it could be just as brutal - Supermodels or babies need only apply.

[Dericali]

Supermodels or babies need only apply.

It's likely that every photo you've ever seen of a supermodel has some degree of skin smoothing effect applied PP :_)

[Paul the Sunman]

There's a Lens Blur filter in ON1 Photo Raw 2019 that does it in a trice.

[zapp]

Real man scratch the front element!

D-FA* 50 is extremely sharp, but OOF drawing is still fine. So you can correct in post. Comparing the character to the FA77 is difficult, the two draw image quite differently. It will be tricky to decide between the future 85 and the 77 for image drawing.

[Paul the Sunman]

Real man scratch the front element!

Don't say that, even in jest! Someone on the internet may take you seriously, resulting in an unspeakable crime.

[Sandy Hancock]

Relax Paul. With the SP coating I reckon you'd have to try *really* hard to scratch that front element

[Jonathan Mac]

Real man scratch the front element!

D-FA* 50 is extremely sharp, but OOF drawing is still fine. So you can correct in post. Comparing the character to the FA77 is difficult, the two draw image quite differently. It will be tricky to decide between the future 85 and the 77 for image drawing.

Real men scratch the rear element.

[normhead]

Your PP software doesn't have skin smoothing? There is a lot of portrait software out there that will solve the issue of "too sharp". There's not a lot that can make a good image from "not sharp enough", although there is some. A friend shot a wedding by accident with AF turned off. He actually found software that cleaned up the images so much the couple couldn't tell. I forget what it was, but it saved my buddy's bacon.

[Wheatfield]

I'm a fan, don't mistake the title but I'm finding I'm hating it for portraiture, it just resolves too much detail even at f/1.4! Case in point, we had a couple of models in my local photoclub last Tuesday, a 60 something gentleman and a 20 something woman. Now either he had a seriously close shave that afternoon that distorted the result but I can make out more hairs on her face

I have seen that the 'experts' on the interweb demand more and more sharpness across the frame but if this carries on I can see Pentax dusting off the designs for the 85 Soft series and creating a whole new lens design dynamic.

I'd expect this and want this from a macro but a standard lens?

If the lens wasn’t as sharp as it is, people, myself included, would have howled like queens in heat on a catnip high. Run your files through a portrait program to tone things down a bit.

[ryanM]

Nikon makes a fast 58mm prime that was specifically designed for people shooting, and it is a gorgeous look, but a lot of people trash the lens for not being sharp enough. It is sharp, but there are chromatic aberrations that sort of smooth out the image. This Pentax lens doesn’t seem to be designed like the Nikon...just a different animal.

Anyway, for people shooting I like a lens that isn’t razor sharp but for other stuff, sharpness is wanted. If you want to make it look good in camera with people, use some filters or play around with diffusion using other means. The Vaseline trick works, but do it on a filter and not your thousand dollar lens. Another trick is to stretch some black pantyhose over the rear element...that makes a nice look for people shooting too. We used to do that all the time whenI was working as a videographer.