My Most Used Portrait Lens Will Surprise You

I was recently going through my

portrait

photography portfolio and then I thought it would be interesting to see what my

most

used

lens

was, what

lens

had contributed the

most

to my overall portfolio and as I grouped the images together and looked through them, I found what I found. was that the lens that I thought I had

used

the least or had contributed the least to was actually the lens that had done the most photography in my portfolio and that really

surprise

d me and I think what a lens it is might really

surprise

you. I also thought about each lens individually, I looked at the photographs I was taking with them and as I did so, it became clear to me and that makes me rethink my strategy with my lenses in general, so in this video I

will

tell you about my

portrait

photography lenses most used why I like them and maybe why they didn't make the biggest contribution to my portfolio and then I'll tell you what my most used lens was and it might help you when you're thinking about your lenses too and the type of photography you're doing with them , so as I review these lenses, I realize that I'm talking about them on full frame cameras, you'll have to calculate any equivalence if you're shooting with a different sensor size, so the lens I really thought I was going to being in first place was the 50 mm.

What I really like about it is that it gives you this kind of editorial look and what editorial means is storytelling, it's like you can take a group of images taken with that lens it gives a consistent result but at the same time it's wide enough like to include elements of what's happening that

will

help tell a story, so if someone is doing something, you'll be able to include it more easily if you're on location, you'll include it a little bit more easily, but it's a minimalist way of filming the most part of the time, it gives you enough context and that's what we often mean when it comes to something editorial, is that we have context for a location or what someone is doing works very well in a studio and works very well on location .

What I don't like, I guess, about the 50mm is that sometimes I prefer the longer aspect of an 85 or a wider aspect of a 35, although I feel like when you go wrong with the 50mm you don't have any of the benefits of which makes a 35 or 855 good. I think when you do it right you get the best of both, but it's harder to do. with a 50 and I have to say I was a little disappointed when it wasn't my most used lens, so I looked at the 24 to 105 and although I had used the 24 to 105 a lot in the studio, I don't use it. outdoors a lot, you can easily go through all those focal lengths, so you want to get a wide perspective and tell stories, you know, a full clothed shot or get really close for a headshot, but the reason why you don't I use the 24 to 105 Outdoors so much is because I am going to complain about that lens with something that I don't talk much about because I don't care much about it and that is the sharpness of the lens, I don't bother.

Paying close attention to the sharpness of the lenses, unless they are too sharp or not particularly sharp, most lenses for me fall into that, it's fine and I don't care about the hair, but the 24 to 105 is definitely not particularly sharp at F4 and when I use it. In the studio I always have to do extra steps with the focus to increase it a little. I really feel like it needs it just to get it into what I would call a standard range. I also think the fact that it only goes to F4 has limited me in some ways because I like to have a little bit of background separation, especially when I'm outdoors and F4 is right at that tipping point.

I think where it's not enough I could almost go, like I was saying, 24 to 105 is probably the perfect studio photography lens because you can shoot at ISO 100 and you get good image quality files with your camera and I think you'd be fine. with that and I've always loved, loved, loved shooting. the 24-105 in a studio, but the 24-105 again was not my most used lens. I also knew it wasn't going to be 70 to 200, although I liked using it in the studio. I know getting those full lengths is really difficult with it and I don't use it outdoors much.

I also don't get enough of the environment and both in the studio and outdoors, my most used lens that has made images that have contributed to my portfolio is the 24 to70. 2.8 Mark 1 from Canon, so I'll briefly explain why I think this is my most used lens. When people photograph with me, they bring clothes that are often quite expensive, so what I'm doing is 90%. portrait, I would say, but it's 10% fashion, it's hard to call it that and I don't want to use the term fashion portraits or anything like that, but the outfits they wear, the clothes they wear, are quite characteristic. a lot of the time in what I do with them, so a lot of what I do is not just standard portrait photography.

I often take half-length portraits and that means I'm showing the surroundings. and I'm also showing clothes more and sometimes I do these full body portraits so my portrait photography is probably not the standard classic portrait photography and that's why I seem to greatly value the flexibility of a zoom lens and even when I'm outdoors, like these photos here, this was taken from 24 to 70 at 2.8 when you get to 2.8 on a full frame sensor or whatever equivalent you have that gets you to that kind of depth of field 2.8 at 50mm and so on it gives you enough background separation, but even though I can still see where you are, it looks nice.

I'd rather shoot a 50 1.4 or 1.2, that's probably my general preference, but 2.8 gives me enough bottom separation to check the box. and I say yes, I have bottom separation, the 247 also gives me a lot of flexibility. When I thought about it more, what occurred to me was that most of the fashion photographers I know shoot with 24 to 70 lenses and it is because of this same flexibility and although I don't consider myself doing fashion, the fact that I often include what the people use or the location, I'm not doing traditional portraits like this, so I think the flexibility of the 24 to 70 has driven over time the other benefits of the other lenses.

Having said all that, it would be very difficult for me on any of the systems I have to give up a prime lens or give up a 50, an 85 or even a 35. I really value the consistent look you get from primes and that little Depth of field is really nice. I think the shallow depth of field is a little overrated at times, but it's really nice. I can't deny that I seem to be going through these cycles where I'm starting to really like my mid-range zooms again at the moment and that always seems to come back to me like the 24 to the 70, even though it's a bit of a boring lens.

It's only boring if you make it boring, it's about what you do with the lens, it's always about your ideas and concepts etc, and I guess it all comes down to how much background blur you really need, how much consistency you want throughout. time you don't want some variation and the 24 to 70 is limited enough yet there's just at least the degree of consistency that you're not getting super wide and you're not getting super telephoto at any stage that you're always getting that mid-range look and I think what happened on my shoots was that once I saw the outfits people had brought and how much effort they had put into them, it was very natural for me to start taking my 24 to7 and do a majority of my shoots with a 24 to 7 lens, by the way, made more sense.

If you like how my work looks, you should visit my workshop. I have an online workshop that you pay for once and then you can watch as many times as you want, the links are in the description below. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you're new, consider subscribing. Give it a like if you enjoyed the video. It really helps the channel. I would like to know from you what it is. Maybe you know the lens you use the most instinctively and you're not like me, who has to look and find out the hard way. It's really interesting to see what they are photographing with.