In honor of Alfredo walking his lenses

[justiceischeap]

I took one of my often left behind lenses, slapped it on my Olympus and snapped this photo of Emma. It's a no-name security/tv camera zoom lens. One of these days I'm going to find someone to sit for me so I can see how it handles as a niche portrait lens.



On edit:
Forgot to mention that I just picked up a JCPenney 135mm f/2.8 lens on eBay. That'll make it a 270mm f/2.8 once I put it on my mirrorless cameras. Reviews and images I've seen say it's a pretty sharp lens.

[alfredo]

1. That is a nice image. I like the low contrast and soft edges,perfect for portraits.

I have a Suntar 135mm 2.8. It's pretty nice. Suntar was one of the first third party lens makers.

Supposedly, the 135mm is easy to engineer.

[Major Nikon]

2. Lenses in the 85-135mm range generally have fewer elements and groups

For whatever reason they tend to have fewer optical aberrations which means the engineers don't have to add more elements and groups to correct for them. It also means these lenses tend to be the sharpest with the fewest aberrations and the lenses I have owned in this range also tend to have the best bokeh. The sharpest lens I own is my Nikon 135/2 DC. It's my favorite portrait lens and before I got it my Nikon 105/2.5 (manual focus) lens was my favorite portrait lens.

At least for 35mm/APC format cameras, lenses in the 105-135mm range seem to be the best for photographing smaller dogs and cats because it gives you about 8' or so of working distance for tight shots like the one in the OP. This seems to be just about right as it's far enough back so that the pet is not intimidated by the camera, but close enough that you can retain the pet's attention. This is also my favorite focal length for people portraits for many of the same reasons. Many amateur photographers prefer shorter focal lengths for this task because the working distances become to great for many home situations where your rooms may not be that big.

[alfredo]

3. My 30 mm is my workhorse. On my m4/3 it is a 60mm, within

The ok range for portraits if you don't get too close. My 50's come in at 100mm so they are fine for portraits.

Later this year I will buy a 60mm just for portraits.

My Yashinon 50 has become my macro lens. I reverse it and add extension tubes. It's pretty sharp.

I am also learning that wide angle isn't the end all for landscapes, especially for my locale.

[Major Nikon]

4. Landscapes can be taken with any focal length lens

Many of the great historical landscape photographs were taken with normal lenses (mainly because that was all they had). I prefer to use either wide angle or telephoto lenses for landscape shots. It has to do with perspective, but generally what I'm after is something other than normal perspective. I either want to exaggerate perspective or compress it.

[alfredo]

5. Sometimes a wide angle makes the target too small, when not accessible by foot. My first SLR had

a 50mm lens. That is what I am comfortable with, and the 30/60 or 28/56mm are close enough for me. Someday a Panasonic/Leica 25mm lens be on my camera, but that is down the road a piece.

[Major Nikon]

6. Here's how I use a wide angle lens for landscape

With a normal lens, perspective stays about the same way our eye sees it.

A wide angle lens distorts perspective (telephoto does too but in the exact opposite way). The wiki entry explains it better than I could.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_distortion_(photography)

So what I like to do for a landscape shot with a wide angle is put something close in the foreground. Wide angle lenses have an incredible depth of field when stopped down. So if you are savy with the hyperfocal distance, you can make both near and far things all in focus. The trick is you have to get very close to the near objects, especially with ultra wide angle lenses. You also have to be careful about where you put the near object in the frame unless you want to use the barrel distortion of the wide angle lens creatively.

[alfredo]

7. Jim Varney used that distortion with his Ernest P Worrell character.

He'd get right up into the camera to take advantage of the distortion.

Jim is missed.

[Major Nikon]

8. I did that with a portrait of a friend of mine

It made his nose look about 3 times bigger. He liked it so much he uses it as his facebook photo.

[alfredo]

9. I learned that my 19/38mm is not the most flattering for

Closeup portraits of women.

[Major Nikon]

10. Probably not

However, I ran across a web site one time of a guy who shoots wedding photography in wide angle, even portraits. A full frame fisheye has most of its barrel distortion in the corners, so if you keep your subject out of the corners the distortion is far less. There's also a plug-in for Photoshop called Fisheye-Hemi which does a fantastic job of removing barrel distortion while preserving detail.

Conventional wisdom says don't use wide angle for portraits as it's generally unflattering, however sometimes it's good to know when you can break the rules as the results can sometimes be quite unique.

[alfredo]

11. I know now to step back to lessen distortion.