What is the best lens focal length for portrait shooting?

Before I know what kind of lens is needed to shoot portraits, I will briefly describe the lens types of each focal segment.

fish-eye lens

Generally, the focal length of fisheye lens is about 4.5mm to 14mm, and the viewing angle is 180. We can shoot most of the scenes through the fisheye lens. However, an important feature of fisheye lens is that it will produce serious distortion, because they always try to cram as many scenes as possible into the sensor. Unless you deliberately use this distortion, you must pay attention to this feature when shooting with a fisheye lens.

Fisheye lenses are usually used to shoot the sky or a wide panorama.

wide-angle lens

A wide-angle lens is similar to a fisheye lens, but its width is different. The focal length of the lens is usually between 14mm and 35mm, and the viewing angle is usually between 64 and 84. Similar to the fisheye lens, the wide-angle lens will produce a certain barrel distortion, but for most lenses, this distortion is controllable and can be easily adjusted back later, so the problem is not big.

Wide-angle lenses are generally used for indoor scenes or architectural photography or landscape photography or street photography.

standard lens

We usually take the 50mm lens as the standard lens, because this is the focal length closest to the human eye, and its viewing angle is about 58. Because its focal length is between wide-angle and telephoto, it is also the most widely used. It can shoot not only landscapes and streets, but also portraits.

long shot

A telephoto lens can shoot objects from a distance. Generally speaking, we will define a lens of about 70mm-300mm (viewing angle is about 34-8) as a telephoto lens, and a lens of more than 300mm (viewing angle is less than 8) as a telephoto lens.

The longer the focal length, the easier it is to blur the background. Therefore, lenses with medium telephoto (about 85mm-135mm) are generally suitable for portrait photography.

The following figure is a perspective from all angles. Through this perspective model, we can also clearly see the background range covered by each focal segment.

When choosing a lens to shoot a portrait, the focal length is very important, which determines the angle of view we can shoot and the distance from the subject. For example, we shoot in a small room, because the space can't be displayed at all, so we can't use a telephoto lens; However, when a wedding or concert is a big space but it is not easy to get close to the main environment, it is obviously impossible to shoot with a wide-angle lens.

Therefore, we should not only choose the appropriate lens according to the shooting style, but also according to the characteristics of the scene environment.

When choosing the focal length of the lens, we also need to consider the influence of the camera sensor. For sensors of different sizes, we also need to consider the lens conversion coefficient. Quan Huafu doesn't need to consider the conversion factor. The focal length of the lens is as much as mm, but for example, the wide-angle end of APS-C sensor is not 18mm, but multiplied by the conversion factor of 1.5 or 1.6, which is about 28 mm. Similarly, the lens of M43 camera,14-. ..

With a 35mm lens, more environments can be substituted, which is suitable for representing environmental portraits, and the wide angle can also be taken very close to the subject, which is suitable for shooting in narrow scenes.

Accordingly, the 50mm lens is the most commonly used lens, and it is also a necessary lens focal length for many portrait photographers. Because its perspective is closest to that of human eyes, it is also the way most photographers see the world. Moreover, the lens distortion of 50mm lens is relatively small (no lens and no distortion). It is precisely because the focal length does not depend on up and down, so it can not only contain a certain background to shoot environmental portraits, but also use a large aperture to create a shallow depth of field to shoot portraits.

Medium telephoto lens (85mm-135mm) is suitable for portrait shooting, because telephoto will create a shallow depth of field, which will easily separate the subject from the background and make the subject stand out more.

In fact, the best portrait photography is not one, but a layout. According to different environments, different shooting themes and different shooting types, choose the focal length that is most suitable for the current shooting environment.