The Canon f/1.8 50mm prime works great for close up portraits, and is very affordable too - about $80.
There are some for the 50mm 1.8 here and herejust curious if anyone is willing to post shots they have taken with that lens
The Canon f/1.8 50mm prime works great for close up portraits, and is very affordable too - about $80.
35L, 50L, 85L, and the 135L
The focal length has a profound influence on perspective, ever try to make a portrait with a wide-angle? (Well, unless you are doing it for the effect on purpose.)Distance to the subject, not focal length, is what controls perspective, such as how big the nose looks relative to the ears. Get too close with any lens and the face will look wider and the nearer nose, arms, feet, etc. will appear larger than normal. Keeping all the body parts a similar distance from the lens also reduces near/far size differences.
The other fixed focal length lenses (85 and 135 mm) overlap with the focal length range of your zoom -- which doesn't make much sense in my opinion.
Which means you crop both pictures so that they cover the same viewing angle. If you shoot portraits with a wide-angle lens, you will have to throw away most of the pixels. But it's not just about pixels, how do you even compose a shot with a lens that has more than twice the viewing angle? Sorry, but this is not how photography works in the real world.Oreo....
Focal length has an effect because it changes where you stand to take the picture.
Take a picture at 28mm.
Take another picture at 70mm or higher STANDING IN THE SAME POSITION
Also because the 1.2/85 lens costs an arm, a leg and your first born *Makes sense to me, especially if we're talking the 85/1.2L which is absolutely incredible for portraits (though might be a tad long on a 1.6x such as the XT). The best bokeh I've ever seen has been from a 85/1.2L
The focal length has a profound influence on perspective, ever try to make a portrait with a wide-angle? (Well, unless you are doing it for the effect on purpose.)
What causes the near/far distortion is not the shorter focal but the fact you would need to move closer to the subject to get the same in-camera crop. Also don't confuse near/far size perspective with the anastigmatic distortion evident at the edges of extreme WA.
Just take a 50mm lens and shoot the same subject from 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 ft. Then take the five photos and crop in Photoshop so the head is the same size. You will see how distance affects facial perspective.
You still don't really read what I've written, you simply cannot take pictures the way you describe:What causes the near/far distortion is not the shorter focal but the fact you would need to move closer to the subject to get the same in-camera crop. Also don't confuse near/far size perspective with the anastigmatic distortion evident at the edges of extreme WA.
Just take a 50mm lens and shoot the same subject from 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 ft. Then take the five photos and crop in Photoshop so the head is the same size. You will see how distance affects facial perspective.
Also because the 1.2/85 lens costs an arm, a leg and your first born *
Plus it's heavy. (Not as much of an issue, I guess, it should weigh about the same as the 2.8/70-200 zoom.)
Even if he buys the 50 mm and decides he doesn't like it, he has wasted very little money on it.