Best Canon Lens for Portraits?

Avery Elem

I have a Canon 450D and I need a new lens for portraits. Do you know which one is the best? I want one with a really shallow depth of field like f/1.2 through f/2.5. I want a fast one, I hate to keep people posing awkwardly while the AF takes ages to focus. And a zoom lens would be better than a fixed focal, but I don;t really mind. So, which one?

Answer
First, why are you using AF to do portraits? You can focus faster and more accurately by doing it manually.

The "best" lens is the one that gives you the results you want. What works for me, may not be the best one for you.

The lenses I use for portraits is the 50mm f/1.4, an 85mm f/1.8, and a 70-200 f/2.8L. Which one I use depends on the setup/session circumstances.

What's a good low cost portrait lens for a canon rebel xt? I'd perfer it have IS and to be a zoom.?

Mommy2MyGi

Answer
The prefect protrait lens for your camera does not have IS and does not zoom.

It is the canon 50mm f1.8 Mk2. Cheapest lens in the canon range, and optically one of the best.

No zoom, but on an APS-C sensor such as the Rebel XT gives an effective focal length of 80mm, which forces a very flattering subject to camera perspective, and also gives lovely soft background and foreground.

It is a bright lens at f1.8, so even stopped down to f2.8 combined with a mid range ISO (the XT is good up to 400 ISO) shot in RAW, you should rarely need IS. If you need to zoom, then walk backwards or forwards.

This is the best advice you will get, given the low cost dimension to the question.

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the lens that comes with the canon rebel XTI is not really good?Could i just get the body with the 50 mm lens

doubleupri

do I need the standard lens?

Answer
Funny, somebody asked this 2 days ago about the 450D...
My answer then and my answer now is that the 50mm is terrible as a walk around lens on a cropped sensor. It´s nice for portraits, but not recommended as your only lens.
Get the 18-55mm zoom. It´s a consumer grade zoom that will do nicely unless/ until you can afford to jump to the $500 mark. In that case get the Canon 17-85mm zoom or the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8. (Or if you want bling-a-ding pro results, save up for the +$1000 Canon 17-55mm f/2.8)
The 50mm f/1.8 does indeed have marginally better image quality than the 18-55mm zoom, but the 50mm will only be useful for 5% of your intended shots.

best lens for canon eos 7d to achieve great dof for film and portraits and also walk around?

David Torr

im looking for one good prime lens that will get the job done no matter what the job is !

Answer
There really isn't any such thing as a single lens - prime or zoom - that "... will get the job done no matter what the job is!" That's why Canon offers so many different lenses. For some, the
EF-S 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 IS is a good "walking around" lens when out on a day trip. Indoors its not so good a choice since its a slow, variable aperture lens. Someone else might prefer either the EF 24mm f1.4 II USM or the EF 35mm f1.4L USM for a "walking around" lens. Either of these fast lenses will prove useful indoors in low-light. The EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 IS USM might be someone else's choice.

Usually the idea when shooting portraits is to achieve a shallow DOF to create separation between your subject and the background. On a 35mm film camera or full-frame DSLR a focal length between 85mm to 105mm would be considered the ideal portrait lens. With the 1.6x "crop factor" of your 7D a 50mm lens would have an equivalent angle of view of an 80mm lens on 35mm of full-frame and would be a good choice for portraits.

When shooting landscapes the idea is to achieve maximum DOF and that's when a wide-angle lens is used. The EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-5.6 USM would be a good choice.

The idea is to choose a lens based on what and where you're shooting.

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Canon Telephoto Lenses?

Marco Scal

I need a decent zoom lens for my Canon t5i. It MUST be under a foot long in its furthest form. Money really isn't a problem but i don't want to spend more then 1,000 but 1,500 would be okay depending on the lens. If it is an L series lens that would be great! It will mainly be used for sports and wildlife.

On a different note i am also looking for a portrait lens. It must preform good in low light. For this one i have a budget of 300-$700. It doesn't have to be made by Canon but it would be better if it was. I am open to any suggestions so feel free to say whatever. Thanks in advance!

Answer
Telephoto zoom: the Canon EF 100-400 F/4.5-5.6 falls top end of your budget.
Portrait - EF 50mm f/1.4 is a superb protrait lens.

the lens that comes with the canon rebel XTI is not really good?Could i just get the body with the 50 mm lens

doubleupri

do I need the standard lens?

Answer
Funny, somebody asked this 2 days ago about the 450D...
My answer then and my answer now is that the 50mm is terrible as a walk around lens on a cropped sensor. It´s nice for portraits, but not recommended as your only lens.
Get the 18-55mm zoom. It´s a consumer grade zoom that will do nicely unless/ until you can afford to jump to the $500 mark. In that case get the Canon 17-85mm zoom or the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8. (Or if you want bling-a-ding pro results, save up for the +$1000 Canon 17-55mm f/2.8)
The 50mm f/1.8 does indeed have marginally better image quality than the 18-55mm zoom, but the 50mm will only be useful for 5% of your intended shots.

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the lens that comes with the canon rebel XTI is not really good?Could i just get the body with the 50 mm lens

doubleupri

do I need the standard lens?

Answer
Funny, somebody asked this 2 days ago about the 450D...
My answer then and my answer now is that the 50mm is terrible as a walk around lens on a cropped sensor. It´s nice for portraits, but not recommended as your only lens.
Get the 18-55mm zoom. It´s a consumer grade zoom that will do nicely unless/ until you can afford to jump to the $500 mark. In that case get the Canon 17-85mm zoom or the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8. (Or if you want bling-a-ding pro results, save up for the +$1000 Canon 17-55mm f/2.8)
The 50mm f/1.8 does indeed have marginally better image quality than the 18-55mm zoom, but the 50mm will only be useful for 5% of your intended shots.

best lens for canon eos 7d to achieve great dof for film and portraits and also walk around?

David Torr

im looking for one good prime lens that will get the job done no matter what the job is !

Answer
There really isn't any such thing as a single lens - prime or zoom - that "... will get the job done no matter what the job is!" That's why Canon offers so many different lenses. For some, the
EF-S 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 IS is a good "walking around" lens when out on a day trip. Indoors its not so good a choice since its a slow, variable aperture lens. Someone else might prefer either the EF 24mm f1.4 II USM or the EF 35mm f1.4L USM for a "walking around" lens. Either of these fast lenses will prove useful indoors in low-light. The EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 IS USM might be someone else's choice.

Usually the idea when shooting portraits is to achieve a shallow DOF to create separation between your subject and the background. On a 35mm film camera or full-frame DSLR a focal length between 85mm to 105mm would be considered the ideal portrait lens. With the 1.6x "crop factor" of your 7D a 50mm lens would have an equivalent angle of view of an 80mm lens on 35mm of full-frame and would be a good choice for portraits.

When shooting landscapes the idea is to achieve maximum DOF and that's when a wide-angle lens is used. The EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-5.6 USM would be a good choice.

The idea is to choose a lens based on what and where you're shooting.

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What are the best lenses to have for the Canon Rebel T3i?

best canon zoom lens for portraits image

Mikay

I have the canon rebel t3i that I've had since Christmas, and it came with 2 lenses: 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM zoom lens, and the 18-50mm f/2.8-4.5 DC OS HSM Canon-ef macro lens, both of which came with the camera bundle. I'm not really looking for a lens that I'd be taking a bunch of pictures of people, like portraits, but rather very close ups, nature, insects, wildlife, etc. I've looked online and I'm thinking of maybe getting another macro lens like this one: EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM. I just love close ups and fine detail of things, I think that may be a high possibility. Any thoughts? Please tell me I'd like to hear opinions on what you think.

Answer
I don't believe there are any "best" lenses - that's shallow thinking meaning that lenses alone won't change anything in the result... only you can do that.

If you knew how to properly operate your lenses for maximum effect you wouldn't be asking this question because you'd already know that you can probably shoot anything out there with the lenses you have.

However, if you're looking for a good walk around lens I recommend the Canon 18-200.

What kind of lenses should a photographer have?

barbevans0

I'm getting a Canon Rebel XTi and I want the right lenses. I'm getting 3 lenses with it, but in the future I hope to have a selection of lenses to choose from.

I mostly take pictures of kids (who are often on the move), flowers, scenery, and of course portraits. I love macro shots, and was wondering if you can do that even without a macro lens? I also want a lens where I can shoot things far away...

The lenses the camera comes with are generic, but it's all I can afford right now. I am planning on getting Canon's in the future.

1) Tamron 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 Wide Zoom Lens
2) Tamron 75-300mm g4-5.6 LD Macro AF Lens
3) 1 Pro Wide-Angle lens (Brand unknown)

Please don't give an answer like Tamron's suck, or anything like that. I'm looking for suggestion of lenses I can purchase in the future.

Thank you!

Answer
Congratulations and good luck on your purchase! Many people swear by their Tamron lenses and they have a pretty good reputation of quality for the price.

You are on the right track by deciding what type of subjects you want to photgraph and selecting lenses based on that objective.

For pictures of kids and for portraits the 28-80 you have selected is already a pretty good choice because it is relatively "fast" (has a lower F number) than the 75-300.

When a lens is described as "fast" it means that it lets in more light so you can use faster shutter speeds. This is handy when shooting kids because it is easier to stop action and take sequences of shots with a faster shutter speed.

Faster lenses are also desirable for portrait work because they generally have better "bokeh", a term which refers to a lenses ability to render areas of the picture surrounding the main subject as "soft" (blurred/out of focus). Many old, 35mm camera, manual focus lenses are bought and sold on eBay as portrait lenses for digital cameras because they can be used on specific digital models and they are available in very fast (F2.8 -- F1.2) types. I would check to see what 35mm camera lenses, if any, will fit your camera (usually with an adapter) and check them out on auction sites. If you use the lens at the 40-80mm zoom range you will generally get good perspective and be working at a comfortable distance from the person you are photographing. The wider settings will usually give a distorted perspective (Big nose/chin, tiny ears, etc.)

The 75-300mm lens should be good for far away subjects such as local sports, dangerous news events and some nature photography. For professional sporting events and wildlife you would most likely need a longer lens with more magnification. These lenses can get BIG and HEAVY and usually require a tripod. Canon has a large selection of such lenses and the discussion of uses and merits would take pages. Until you have a better idea of what limitations you are running into that is not yet something to consider.

For Macro photography there are many ways to increase magnification besides buying macro lenses. If you have patience and are willing to experiment you can get extension tubes or bellows that will allow your exisitng lenses to focus significantly closer to a subject, but you often have to use them in manual focus mode and set the F setting manually. That is a great way to learn and manual focus is often better in macro photos because there is very little margin for error.

You can also get close-up lenses that screw onto the front of your basic lenses and allow those lenses to focus closer. This may not be as good quality as extension tube/bellows unless you buy very good quality lenses but it can get you started.

I recomend that your next purchase be a good quality tripod or monopod because having a very stable camera is one of the greatest keys to quality images.

Most importantly, take pictures and have FUN!!

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