People shots with a 35mm ?!

[ericdan]

I'm interested in taking more people shots.
The only lens I have is a 35mm. Is anything except for 'environmental portraits' possible with this? Will head and upper body shots show a lot of distortion?

 

[darkosaric]

On the border - but 35mm is still ok. The more on the edge of the frame, and closer to the person - distortion will be more visible. It depends more from a style you want to achieve: I have seen nice portraits with 21mm and use distortion in a good way - for example make models legs look longer.

I personally would use 50mm or 105mm for portraits.

 

[ericdan]

I'm not sure what I want yet. Either upper body and head or whole body. I think a 105mm would be too long. 50 would be nice I guess but lenses are so damn expensive. I have an M6. Don't really want to buy another lens.

 

[darkosaric]

I'm not sure what I want yet. Either upper body and head or whole body. I think a 105mm would be too long. 50 would be nice I guess but lenses are so damn expensive. I have an M6. Don't really want to buy another lens.

Elmar 90mm f4 is not expensive (I have one - great lens). I see right now in Classifieds one for £50 - go for it.

 

[ericdan]

Wow. And at 90mm even f4 will give decent bokeh

 

[darkosaric]

Here is one example from elmar 90, something around 2 meters from the subject:

Dead Link Removed

 

[polyglot]

35mm is totally doable, you just need to be close-ish and hyper-aware of background clutter. It's a classic focal length for street photography. Hell, you can make a good portrait with a fisheye, so 35mm is *easy*.

I regularly use 65mm for portraits on 6x7cm, which has the same field of view as ~32mm on a 35mm camera.

 

[ericdan]

Can you post one or two?

 

[darkosaric]

35mm is totally doable, you just need to be close-ish and hyper-aware of background clutter. It's a classic focal length for street photography. Hell, you can make a good portrait with a fisheye, so 35mm is *easy*.

I regularly use 65mm for portraits on 6x7cm, which has the same field of view as ~32mm on a 35mm camera.

I agree it is doable. But correct me if I am wrong - 65mm on 6x7 will give much less distortion in comparison with 35mm on 24x36?

 

[baachitraka]

35mm will do and bring more drama than boring 50mm or higher.

 

[snapguy]

what do you want

Do you really want to take portraits or do you just want to do "bokeh" snaps? I am amazed these days how many camera-pointers screw up the subject of their photos on purpose in order to get extreme cornball, over-done and trite "bokay." "Bokay" isn't all of photography, it's Grandma's faded, moth-eaten lace doilies on an easy chair.

 

[miha]

I agree it is doable. But correct me if I am wrong - 65mm on 6x7 will give much less distortion in comparison with 35mm on 24x36?

Why? It's the angle of view + the size of the capturing media, not mm.

 

[darkosaric]

Why? It's the angle of view + the size of the capturing media, not mm.

Hi Miha,

In theory it should be the same - and it is same in central point of the lens/picture. But if person that I am photographing is close to camera and on the edge of the frame - I don't know why - but somehow pictures from my 80mm rolleiflex lens looks better, more natural, than from 50mm nikon on same size of capturing media/distance. I guess best would be to make some proper test, maybe someone with better optical knowledge can explain better. It could be that this is all my subjective impression.

regards,

 

[Mark Crabtree]

35mm is my favorite focal length for people, with 50mm coming in a close 2nd. This has been the case for a long time, but more so lately as I realize that content and context are really what make a picture have some lasting interest for me. I know some folks will disagree, which is good, we don't all want to be taking the same picture, but I think it is too easy to take very pleasant, boring pictures with classic people focal lengths of 85-105mm. Please don't take offense; I still like the longer lenses and got some nice shots a couple days ago of my neighbor with his chickens with a 105. It is just that with the glut of pictures today, as I try to think about and understand why I would make a picture, content and context come to the forefront. 35mm does that for me.

One thing that does work for me is that I shoot people pictures with the 35 as horizontals; close cropped "portrait" orientation pictures don't work well for me in that focal length. Then again, if you can make it work, you might actually have something more interesting than the usual headshot.

 

[BetterSense]

You can always stand back at an appropriate distance and crop the negative to achieve the same perspective as a longer lens. With 35mm, you will quickly run into image structure degradation and grain, but with fine-grained film, you can get away with quite a lot of cropping if you find the results acceptable.

 

[Oren Grad]

50 would be nice I guess but lenses are so damn expensive. I have an M6.

50mm Jupiter-8.

 

[Chan Tran]

Do you really want to take portraits or do you just want to do "bokeh" snaps? I am amazed these days how many camera-pointers screw up the subject of their photos on purpose in order to get extreme cornball, over-done and trite "bokay." "Bokay" isn't all of photography, it's Grandma's faded, moth-eaten lace doilies on an easy chair.

+1.
It seems that it is a trend today for paper thin depth of field and bokeh. I am way behind the trend, I shoot way too many shots at f/8 and smaller.

 

[miha]

Do you really want to take portraits or do you just want to do "bokeh" snaps? I am amazed these days how many camera-pointers screw up the subject of their photos on purpose in order to get extreme cornball, over-done and trite "bokay." "Bokay" isn't all of photography, it's Grandma's faded, moth-eaten lace doilies on an easy chair.

I think that OP confuses the term bokeh with DOF. Still, he is entitled to do what he wishes. Bokeh snaps are fine, too.

 

[benjiboy]

Hi Miha,

In theory it should be the same - and it is same in central point of the lens/picture. But if person that I am photographing is close to camera and on the edge of the frame - I don't know why - but somehow pictures from my 80mm rolleiflex lens looks better, more natural, than from 50mm nikon on same size of capturing media/distance. I guess best would be to make some proper test, maybe someone with better optical knowledge can explain better. It could be that this is all my subjective impression.

regards,

In my experience aperture for aperture on medium format cameras you get less depth of field than 35mm miniature format lenses at the same aperture and focusing distance.

 

[miha]

In my experience aperture for aperture on medium format cameras you get less depth of field than 35mm miniature format lenses at the same aperture and focusing distance.

Not true if you use lenses of the same focal length.

 

[ericdan]

Don't think I mentioned anything about DOP.

 

[polyglot]

All that matters for perspective distortion is the field of view, which is defined by the ratio of focal length to film size. For DOF (for a fixed field of view and varying film size), its the physical aperture size.

So in summary, 35mm f/4 (therefore 8.75mm aperture) on 35mm film (24x36) will give the same image (except for emulsion effects like grain) as 70mm f/8 on 6x7cm film (56x69mm) if cropped to 2:3. The 6x7 image will be slightly squarer, i.e. the short side won't be as short and the long side will be not quite as long. The DOF and FOV (including distortion effects) will be identical, the exposure will be 4x longer and the image smoother for the 6x7.

Anyway, I typically use 110mm for portraits (that's 55mm on 35), but the wider lens is great for group shots, showing a lot of environment, or when you want to get right up close for a more-intimate feel while still showing just as much of the subject. And for the extreme case, street photography with a fisheye (37mm, which is like an 18mm on 135 - your basic full-frame fish).

 

[John Koehrer]

Bokeh is a result of lens design and aperture. It's the character/appearance more of the out of focus quality of background subjects. Nothing else.

DOF being equal for different formats/lenses at a given aperture is true ONLY IF you're dealing with the actual diameter(in mm) of the aperture and NOT the f number.

IE: a 50mm lens(35mm) and 50mm(6X6) only have the same Dof at N mm diameter. The reason a 50 on 6X6 has less at a given f number is that it has a considerably larger diameter opening. Equalize it by opening the aperture on the 35 or closing the aperture on the 6X6.

I know, now we're really getting off topic.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

Can you shoot people pictures with a 35 mm lens on a 35 mm camera? Sure (for all the reasons that have been given). However, a lot depends on what it is you are trying to achieve. If you are looking for the classic portrait look, a 35 mm lens is too short. With it, you will need to move in close to fill your frame and this will make facial features (like large noses) 'larger than life'. My preference for this type of shot was a 85 mm lens. If you are looking for the 'character study' look, maybe the large nose look is what you want.

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

35mm great for environmental portraits but a bit too much "big nose" distortion the closer you get. I second the 90/4 Elmar, gorgeous signature. I also like my 75/2.5 VC Color-Skopar, one of the few VC lenses for Leica-mount I've kept.