"ilp recommends*"
ILP highly recommends adding both a 50mm and an 85mm lens to your camera bag if you consider yourself an aspiring portrait photographer. The 50mm will serve beautifully for those times when you need to fit the whole subject into the frame, for small groups, for large groups at a distance, and for general shooting whenever you don't really need to get close up to the subject. On the longer end, the 85mm will serve as your main workhorse lens during most any type of portrait session, since it may be be used for a wide range of shooting scenarios, with the much loved benefit of being able to blur the background with its shallow depth of field at wide apertures. For more information and advice on lens selection, you might want to start a new topic in the equipment forum at ILP. However, it is our opinion that adding the 50mm and 85mm to your collection is one of the smartest equipment acquisitions you'll make in your career, as they are both going to serve you very well even if you decide along the way to venture into owning various zooms, wider angles, or exotic specialty lenses. For ease of purchasing, we offer the following affiliate Amazon links: Please note: All of the below links are Amazon affiliate links.Thank you for supporting ILP: For Canon users: 50mm f1.4 lens: ILP recommends: Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Lens for Canon SLR Cameras 85mm f1.8 lens: ILP recommends: Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM Lens for Canon SLR Cameras For Nikon users: 50mm f1.4 lens: ILP recommends: Nikon 50mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras 85mm f1.8 lens: ILP recommends: Nikon 85mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras For those photographers who desire an 85mm lens with an even wider aperture and a bit more professional build quality: Nikon 85mm f1.4 lens: ILP recommends: Nikon 85mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras Canon 85mm f1.2 lens: ILP recommends: Canon EF 85mm f1.2L II USM Lens for Canon DSLR Cameras ~~~~~~~~ Eddie's Camera Bag (The links below are Amazon Affiliate Links): Nikon D3S Digital CameraNikon 85mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor Lens Nikon 50mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor Lens Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II AF-S Lens Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S lens Nikon 60mm f/2.8G ED AF-S Micro Lens
Recommendations updated: 1/1/2010 * Eddie (owner and administrator of ILP), has worked as a children's portrait photographer for more than 20 years, and along the way has tried all kinds of Nikon lenses to help capture the images that clients desire. The 50 and 85mm lenses continue to be his most often used lenses. The simple recommendations on this page derive from this ongoing, "real world" experience. |
