90mm leica lens for portraits?

[Linda longer]

I'm considering getting a 90mm leica lens for portraits, I have a 50mm but sometimes i feel i need to get to close to my subject, just wanted to know what opinions people have. would a 75mm be better?

Thanks

 

[D Fuller]

Don't waste your time on the internet looking for other people's opinions. Get a lens and use it to form your own opinion -- and your own eye. If you don't like the lens, sell it and try another. Beautiful portraits can be made with either. My favorite lens the world falls in between. (The Nikkor 85mm 1.4 AIS) But you develop your eye by shooting for yourself. Other voices in your head are just a distraction.

 

[Elan Gunos]

Focal length is important, but also look for lenses with very little distortion. That is, if you shoot a grid of lines, the grid should remain pretty straight—there's a lot of sites that do these lens tests. The reason why this is important is it will keep the face you're capturing in proper proportions. This is also why photographers tend to favor the telephoto side of things when doing portraits, because telephoto lenses keep things pretty straight. I would go as low as 50 and as high as 135 to 180. Experiment!

 

[Rob Castiglione]

90 mm Leica R for portraits

90 mm Leica R for portraits

Hi Linda,

I can confirm that the Leica R 90mm is a superb lens for portrait work. I use it often. It is sharp and also has that ... well Leica look! Widest aperture on this f2 and it is still very sharp wide open.

Another very good lens as mentioned is the Nikkon fully manual 85mm 1.4 - noticeably soft wide open but again exceptional for portrait work.

The good thing about both lenses is that they are relatively inexpensive on ebay.

I have both lenses and they look quite different. I would not hesitate to get either but I think I prefer the 90mm.

All the best

 

[Samir Patel]

Hi Linda,

I can confirm that the Leica R 90mm is a superb lens for portrait work. I use it often. It is sharp and also has that ... well Leica look! Widest aperture on this f2 and it is still very sharp wide open.

Another very good lens as mentioned is the Nikkon fully manual 85mm 1.4 - noticeably soft wide open but again exceptional for portrait work.

The good thing about both lenses is that they are relatively inexpensive on ebay.

I have both lenses and they look quite different. I would not hesitate to get either but I think I prefer the 90mm.

All the best

Hey Rob, I have the 90R but not the 85AIS. Can you post some samples of the 85AIS?

 

[Maik Müller]

I'm considering getting a 90mm leica lens for portraits, I have a 50mm but sometimes i feel i need to get to close to my subject, just wanted to know what opinions people have. would a 75mm be better?

You can always play around with a zoom to get a rough idea about how a focal length looks and how close you can get with it.

For portraits i like to go tele, if i can. 85 is just a start, i like to shoot portraits with my 100mm too. But i'll soon get a 135mm, because thats the area where i'm ending up mostly with my 70-200.

 

[David W. Jones]

Pick up a couple of apps like pCAM and Artemis before you start spending hard coin on lenses.

 

[Dr. Sassi]

The lens must fit to the face, given a certain idea of aesthetic: yours.

If the distance stays the same it doesn't matter, the "drawing" of the face is the same", but with a longer lens you take normally a greater distance, (vice versa) -- there -- the selection of the lens is part of the effect.
Not every face works with a longer lens. I call the effect Pan-cake face, when the long lens flattens the face and it looks flat and wide. A too wide lens might help some faces, others might even look horrible.

Buy the lens and test each model how well the distance and focal length work together.

The focal length as only parameter is not really all there is to it, the sensor size (or the crop of it) will change your distance to the model as well, considering the same size of the model in the "frame".

As David said, do your tests, or in other words, invest all the time you can effort in getting really familiar with the lenses. Each lens is different, like you need to explore each sensor similar to explore film stock/developing in the old days.

Enjoy the exploration, every second spend with open eyes will add to your skills.