Advice on using 70-200 2.8 for portraits

[mikeyw]

Hi,

I've always played safe on my D7200 and used 50 or 85mm primes for portraits. However i'm going to give my Tamron 70-200 a try as i'm not using it enough.

I'm doing some staff photos at the local school this week and would like to test it there.

Do people find this delivers good portraits on a crop sensor ? I love the bokeh on the lens but have gone for the lightweight option until now.

What aperture / focal length do people usually use on this lens for portraits? i'd imagine f2.8 to narrow / soft so tried F4 at 165mm on this test shot (on camera sb900 flash+gary fong). To me it's possibly still too narrow a dof still and even may be front focusing a bit ? (apologies for the poor framing my son rushed off before i could grab another)



On the subject of front focusing what's the best way to AF tune a long zoom like this ? - should i set to 150mm and AF tune it for that focal length ?

Thanks for any advice - it's a lovely lens that i really need to practice more with.



Mike.

 

[Seochris]

That is a very shallow DOF....his right ear and shoulder is out of focus. I would try a few more test shots with a smaller aperture and really get to know the lens before I started fiddling with settings etc....but then thats just me....

It also looks quite 'soft' even the in focus bits so maybe a tweak will be required.

 

[juggler]

I use mine on a ff sensor for portraits, often in preference to my 85mm 1,8G. If I had a 135 I probably wouldn't. Given that your 85 is on a crop it'd be tempting to stick with that.

fwiw when I have the time & space I choose focal length according to face shape. I've only occasionally wanted to go out as far as 200.

 

[metroman]

I'm a big fan of my 70-200 and will use a variety of focal lengths, apertures and ISO's, it's such a versatile lens albeit heavy after a while.
Monika by Brian Lewicki, on Flickr​