First Portrait Lens Canon Nifty Fifty or Sigma 18-125mm f3.8-5.6 dc os hsm

Jwar1976

Jwar1976

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Hi all,

I have spent a few days with my Dad (A retired film SLR professional) & have not only seen some of the joys of portrait photography from his old work, but have also had the pleasure of trying out the 100mm F2.8, which is clearly out of my price range & rather unthinkable in getting as an beginner in photography. My Dad says that while a 50mm prime lens is good, I would get better use out of a replacement kit lens & having looked at WEX, I noticed that I can get the 18-125mm Sigma for under £150 & looks as tho it would also make a good replacement to the bog standard 18-55. I am really interested in getting into as many areas of Photography as possible, but without spending a fortune to begin with on lens for each area. I have a half decent telephoto lens (55-250 II) which I will be upgrading to the 70-300 in the near future as I was really impressed with using my Dad's 70-300 on his 50D & my 450D. So the next thing to decide on is a budget lens for portraits either say a Nifty Fifty or a lens like the Sigma, that could well be used for portraits, as well as other things at the wider end.

Opinions please

Thanks :)

Note to mods : I did post this same thread in portraits, but have now thought it maybe a better discussion here. Hope this isn't breaking the rules.
 
The Canon 18-135 is a good lens and well worth having with the extra reach over the 18-55, the Sigma likewise, both are often available second hand at good prices.
For portraits you benefit from a shallow depth of field so a prime such as the nifty fifty at f1.8 is really great for that - it's also very cheap second hand.
 
Thank you very much for your opinion Duncan, it is appreciated :)
 
The Canon 50/1.8 has much in it's favour - it's lightweight, decent enough quality and it's very cheap. The cheapness is the reason most people buy it, usually to put onto a crop sensor body. But 50mm is a Marmite focal length on an APS-C sensor. Personally I find it's too long for every day walkabout purposes and too short for portraits. I prefer something around 85mm on APS-C for portraits, have a look at the Canon 85/1.8. If you already have the 55-250 you already have a very capable zoom that covers the portrait focal lengths.
 
85mm f1.8 is worth a look - though to be honest if its your only portrait lens (and you don't have a set of different length primes) you might be better off with a zoom.. personally I use a 17-50 f2.8 Tamron , but then I also have a 70-200 f2.8 sigma for when longer lengths are needed
 
Just to throw a spanner in the works. I used to love my 17-85mm on my 40D and 50D. But since moving to full frame I use a 24-105mm. As Alastair said the 85mm f1.8 is a good lens. If your on a tight budget, look for a second hand lens. Some good ones can be picked up a lot cheaper than a new one. Or even a better lens for the same price as a new cheaper one.
 
course if money is really tight an adaptor and some legacy glass could be the way to go (manual focus is les of a handicap if you are dealing with posed shots than it would be for candids and action) you can get a whole bunch of primes in one of the older fits for an absolute pittance on ebay (do watch out for thenm actually working properly and being free from fungus though)
 
All I can say is wow, I never would have imagined that there would be so many choices to look at for a beginners portrait lens. It is great that I already have a lens (55-250) that will cover portrait focal length. I will take a look at the primes suggested & see if i can find one within a reasonable price range. @freespray sometimes a spanner in the works is needed, especially where a budget is concerned, as I am interested in most areas of photography, I love doing animal pictures & the zoo and am only considering the 70-300 for that extra bit of reach at zoos. But now as I am interested in doing portraits of fellow humans, I am now looking at lenses to cover that area as well. If only the Tammy 18-270 was a decent all rounder, then that would be the answer.
 
big soft moose said:
course if money is really tight an adaptor and some legacy glass could be the way to go (manual focus is les of a handicap if you are dealing with posed shots than it would be for candids and action) you can get a whole bunch of primes in one of the older fits for an absolute pittance on ebay (do watch out for thenm actually working properly and being free from fungus though)
Click to expand...

What would this adapter be and what older primes are any good ?
 
The problem with any all rounder lens (aka travel zoom/super zoom) is that there's always a compromise somewhere just to get it down to a budget that the market can afford - and inevtiably they're almost always pitched at the budget/economy end of the market - and a mass that people are happy to carry around. Anything much above a 4x zoom is going to get heavy and expensive very quickly if it's going to be fast and/or have top-notch image quality.


On adapters and manual lenses, there are some very good old manual lenses that will work with Canon cameras. With the right adapter you'll even get a limited degree of automatic exposure (Av only, this needs a "chipped" adapter). This option opens you up to some very nice lenses (e.g. Zeiss, Minolta) at sometimes very reasonable prices (you do need to know what you're looking for, there's also a lot of cr&p about). 85mm is still a bit of a problem even with manual lenses (it's historically been an unpopular focal length) but other desirable focal lengths such as 135mm suddenly become very easy to find at reasonable prices (I suspect most manual lens users have the ubiqutous CZJ 135/3.5 in their collection).

The downside to manual lenses.. ..you'll never walk past a charity shop again without nipping in for a look to see if a gem has appeared since the last time you passed..
 
Why not set your 18-55mm at 50mm and also the 55-250 at 85mm then point them at people to get a feel for the shots. You will not get the shallow depth of field effects but it may help you decide which way to go.
 
@Alastair thank you for the information on the adapters and lenses, I will have a look into them :). @huffy that is a great suggestion, thank you :). @freespray, if that was at all possible, then we would all be too shattered from carrying them around, to even think about using them. :D
 
Well after mucking about with my lenses with the ideas put to me by huffy, not getting the shallow depth of field made me want something that would do the job & so on Tuesday evening I invested in the Nifty Fifty 1.8, which arrived this morning. I will hopefully be doing my first ever portrait shots next week, so of course I will post the images on here for constructive criticism on how I can improve. :)
 
Personally I wouldn't be that interested in a manual lens on a DSLR unless the subject is big in the frame or you're using live view. On a CSC with EVF, peaking and magnified view MF is a joy but much less so with a DSLR IMVHO. Note that with Minolta legacy glass you'd need an adapter with a lens in it, personally I'd avoid that and go for something else with a straight metal only adapter, like Zuiko.

Although a prime lover I'd question the buying of a prime for this purpose as personally I doubt I'd be shooting a lot of portraits at very wide apertures as (sometimes if you shoot like that) there's very little in the DoF and you can get one eye in and one eye out and if you are shooting stopped down a bit what's the advantage of a lovely wide aperture prime? Unless you are in love with the bokeh of a particular prime.

A family member used to shoot portraits all day long with a 5D and 24-105mm L and something in that sort of range might be good on APS-C.

Good luck with the 50mm.
 
I may have said this once or twice before but....a 50mm lens does not make a good portrait lens (if we assume a traditional portrait to be head and shoulders) It's too wide and does not flatter the human face.
 
There are so many options out there, I would personally advice you to use the lens you have currently in the environments you like taking portraits in and see what focal lengths suit you best. If you're setting up a home studio, then focal length is extremely important as the room may not be big enough to use a lens longer then 50mm (with a crop DSLR). Alternatively if you shoot outside then you may want to use a 200mm lens to get a really compressed image (with very blurry backgrounds). It's all down to experience, situation and what you want your pictures to look like.

My favourite lens to use for portrait work is my EF-S Canon 60mm Macro f2.8. It's super sharp and provides me with a focal length equivalent of around 100mm on a crop sensor. I can shoot inside with a studio setup in most rooms i've used so far, but if it's a small room then I'll be using the Tamron 17-50 f2.8. Outside I generally use a Canon 70-200 f4 as it gives a lovely compressed image and highlights the person beautifully.

Just use what you have, I still prove to friends that in a studio environment their iPhone in my hands will easily out perform my DSLR with lenses of their choice and their own lighting setup.
 
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