perfect focal lengths????

[adam75south]

ok so i keep hearing from different people about perfect portrait lengths and stuff like that.

so what is it? i've heard that 85mm is the perfect focal length for portraits but i've also heard the 115mm is the perfect portrait length(from an actual professional photographer i assist on occasion). maybe the 85mm with a 1.6X crop and 115mm for full frame????

and what about group shots. for all you wedding photographers...at what length do you usually shoot your group shots at? keep in mind i have a 30d so try not to confuse me too much. the reason i ask is that the last wedding i went to, the photographer shot us at a very wide angle. i imagine he used somewhere around 24mm because he was very close to us. in my mind that doesn't make much sense because it distorts somewhat and i think it would make the people in the back look alot farther away from the people in the front than they really are.

also i'm somewhat confused about the conversion...if a 50mm is more like an 80mm, then does it have all the properties of an 80mm(as far as flattening the face and stuff like that)or does it still look like a 50 but you just lose angle?

thanks in advance.

[noyjimi]

Perfect? Maybe ideal?

Anyway... between 85-135mm is probably the ideal portrait FL, based on its FoV, on a FF chip. So on a 1.6x cropper, you use a 50mm - 85mm FL to get the "same" FoV, although not necessarily the same DoF, for example, if they are framed differently or the focusing distance in the situation.

As for group shots, it does make sense not to go too wide, or at least to keep the people at the ends away from the edge of the frame.

Also, 50mm (or more precisely its FoV on a FF platform) is known as normal as it mimics what the human eye sees (the reasonably sharp areas in front of us anyway, not talking about the blurry peripheries out of the corner of our eyes).

Anyway, perfect or ideal is relative to the situation. A UWA focal length is ideal for landscapes or whatever, for example, but not for portraits.

[adam75south]

so in my 1.6X crop case, i would be smart to use 35mm for group shots then?

p.s. i used the term perfect because that is what i see everyone use..the "perfect" portrait lens. it is relative because the way i meant perfect is the same thing you mean by when you say ideal. and i didn't mean perfect focal length like one that will work for anything. i meant for each type i was asking. what should be used for portrait and for group shots.

[aparmley]

so in my 1.6X crop case, i would be smart to use 35mm for group shots then?

p.s. i used the term perfect because that is what i see everyone use..the "perfect" portrait lens. it is relative because the way i meant perfect is the same thing you mean by when you say ideal. and i didn't mean perfect focal length like one that will work for anything. i meant for each type i was asking. what should be used for portrait and for group shots.

The WP I was shooting with used a 50 and an 80 for the whole wedding | the 50 for large groups, the 80 for 3/4 lenght and close ups. . . ofcourse this was on medium format (Mamiya) so what does that translate to in 35mm? is that something like ~35mm and ~50mm? I'm not sure, I mean that 80mm seemed so freaking wide through those mamiya viewfinders. . . compared to the 85 x 1.6 crop I was used too. . . .

I'd think the 35mm might be a little long for some group shots, depends on the size of the group and the distance you are from them.

[cwphoto]

Hey, all can be perfect on their day.

I've seen classic portraits done from 50mm up to 600mm. Whatever suits the situation.:confused:

[24Peter]

Hey, all can be perfect on their day.

I've seen classic portraits done from 50mm up to 600mm. Whatever suits the situation.:confused:

Yeah - my range (for one person) is 50mm to 200mm (on my XT so you do the math). Really depends on what I'm trying to achieve at the moment - and also how much space I have to work with.

[Clyde]

Hey, all can be perfect on their day.

I've seen classic portraits done from 50mm up to 600mm. Whatever suits the situation.:confused:

I thought the difference had to do with the relationship between foreground and background that is a characteristic of focal length, independent of crop. For instance, wider than, say 50mm focal length tends (I thought) to stretch backgrounds, making folks seem unflatteringly fatter. Alternatively, wider than 50 mm tends (again, I thought) to compress backgrounds, making folks seem thinner. In this sense, 50mm was (once more, I thought) the focal length where the relationship between background and foreground best mimics our vision.

People here talk in ways that lead me to question my uneducated thoughts. If a 50mm lens on a 1.6 crop camera is the equivalent of an 85mm lens on a full frame, then the distortion isn't associated with the focal length. This means that the field of vision is a more important feature for choosing an appropriate portrait lens than any optical features inherent in focal lengths.

Confusedly,

Clyde