Why the 85mm F1.4 is adviced as "The portrait lens"?

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Stany Buyle
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Why the 85mm F1.4 is adviced as "The portrait lens"?

Post by Stany Buyle »

Often I see the 85mm F1.4 indicated as "the ultimate portrait lens".
Why?
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James
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Re: Why the 85mm F1.4 is adviced as "The portrait lens"?

Post by James »

Because of the perspective you get if you fill the frame with head and shoulders and the soft focus effect of shooting at f1.4 which hides blemishes on skin.

That was with 35mm film anyway :)
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Re: Why the 85mm F1.4 is adviced as "The portrait lens"?

Post by Leen Koper »

Personalle I prefer a longer lens. I know for generations the 85mm has been considered as 'the portrait lens' as generaly the portraits were larger at that time. Nowadays we are used to portraits that are more 'close up' portraits. An a little longer lens will serve these goals better.
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Re: Why the 85mm F1.4 is adviced as "The portrait lens"?

Post by Leen Koper »

Rethinking my answer I came to some conclusions, being a professional studio portrait photographer as my main occupation.

The famous 'creamy bokeh' is often nonsense in practice. In a studio we usually use apertures like 5,6 8, and 11 and rather short distances of the subject to the background or a background with just one colour (usually white). So the practical use of the 'famous bokeh' is pointless.
Sharpness is rather nonsense too. We often don't want our portraits to be extremely sharp and often use software to lessen the effect of our ultra sharp lenses. Especially the american portrait photographers do soften the skin in a way -the client wants it- in a way that ultimate sharpness is completely useless.
And guess what: the advocates of the 1,4 lens are mainly US colleagues (on forums), most of which I suspect not to be a portrait photographer at all.

From personal experience I expect most professional studio photographers to use a longer zoomlens to produce a healthy turnover. And the 85 mm? It is an extremely good landscape lens.
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