[rparmar]

There's nothing special about 85mm. The fixation on that number is just a fetish. Choose the focal length that puts you at the distance you want to be from your subject, to get the framing you need.

[sany]

Swapnil - ..35mm Equivalent: So if you use any lens on Digital sensor, the image circle wont match and the whole image will be cropped by the cropping factor i.e. 1.5 in all APS-C cameras...

I wont recommend telephoto lens for portraits and indoor shooting. They are not as fast and snappy as primes are. DA 35mm F2.4 is a good portrait lens for indoor shooting. If you can live with Manual focus Pentax-A 50mm is a good option too. Its cheap fast and simply awesome

Thanks Swapnil for elaborating that for me!
I already have the 35mm 2.4 with me just that it was a bit too close for taking children shots while the adults can stand and strike a pose it is fine for indoor as well.

acrollet - this may be a bit over-simplified, but a 50mm is pretty much a "portrait" length on apc-c, and 85mm is basically telephoto. I would suggest you get a zoom that covers the range and experiment to find out what length works for you. The pentax 50-200mm is available quite cheaply...

acrollet - thanks, I bought my camera without the kit and bought the 35mm 2.4 along instead as I wanted to save that little $$s for later to invest on some good quality ones.

twitch - If 35 f.5 is too short, then I think you would be better off looking for a DA 70mm. I do think 50 & 35 is too close, especially if you have only 1 prime currently. Actually maybe a DA 55-300 would be good if you don't already own one.
I assume you have a kit lens, use that to confirm what focal length you want.
Forget crop factor!

twitch, thanks for those encouraging words - I agree with you that 35 is too short when you go outdoors as we can only capture people with them knowing resulting in plasticky poses rather than natural ones when we stay at some comfortable distance! This is why I wanted to have another one (while still retaining 35 for those indeed nice indoor and group shots where space limits).
As mentioned earlier I didn't get the kit lens along, but just couple of days back I picked up an old Tammy 28-200 LD (film camera zoom) for $60 as a backup or walkaround lens during those unpleasant dusty, weather conditions which I can use to try to confirm the focal length as you suggested, but again you see that one is a film lens so i might need to recalculate to get the right focal length depending on the (film lens or the new gen lens) lens I decide to buy.

rparmar - There's nothing special about 85mm. The fixation on that number is just a fetish. Choose the focal length that puts you at the distance you want to be from your subject, to get the framing you need.

Thanks for relieving me to release that mind set that was locked me to go after 85mm, so now I should keep myself open for both 50mm and 85mm which ever comes with a great deal.

[twitch]

.. but again you see that one is a film lens so i might need to recalculate to get the right focal length depending on the (film lens or the new gen lens) lens I decide to buy.

No you dont. 85mm on a full frame lens mounted on a crop DSLR is the same as 85mm on a crop sensor lens on a crop DSLR.

In other words, forget that the 28-200 was a full frame lens, if you like say 85mm on that lens then you need to buy a 85mm lens. period.

Like I said, please please forget about conversion/crop factors.

[rparmar]

Thanks for relieving me to release that mind set that was locked me to go after 85mm, so now I should keep myself open for both 50mm and 85mm which ever comes with a great deal.

Decide what application you will be pursuing and what field of view suits this. My article Perspective Distortion, Sensor Size And Portraiture should help.

P.S. The FA77 is the follow-up lens to the A* 85mm, using basically the same optical design but in a much more compact form factor. Though you can find many other useful portrait lenses you won't be able to find a strictly better one. And if portability is a factor it is strictly the best.

[Designosophy]

For photographing my niece, I often use an A 135/2.8. Manual focus, auto aperture.






And I've used the M 50/1.4 for indoors (closer quarters, less light).