Portrait at 300mm?: Portrait and People Photography Forum: Digital Photography Review (2024)

I saw a post earlier where the OP was bashing folks for using the 300mm 2.8 for portraits. I usually don't use mine for portraits, but I may start now..

This one is a straight ooc jpeg I shot just to try it out.

Post up your own 300mm portraits

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Everything is a matter of taste and you did a very good one according to my taste. Using a 300mm, I don't see why not. It is not important what kind of camera or lens, but the outcome. I wish more People would be concerned about that than what gear. I myself use FuCaNiPenlei camera, outstanding.

I don't know why one would need to bash anything about using the 300. Stop down a bit and it would make a fine portrait lens... assuming you have a nice long studio.

Although I could understand the reality that most people using the 300 2.8 to take "portraits" are most likely using it to take photos of people in public without their knowledge...

-Suntan

The end result that you posted is excellent. The enigmatic smile reminds me of one in a very famous painting. The lens, or any other technical data, is irrelevant.

As for the comment about users of 300mm lenses using them to take unsuspecting people's photos, I choose to ignore it; do people with fisheye lenses use them to take pictures of their toes?

Suntan wrote:

I don't know why one would need to bash anything about using the 300. Stop down a bit and it would make a fine portrait lens... assuming you have a nice long studio.

A 300mm lens on a DSLR clearly is not in any way useful for studio work. But there is no reason to think that all portaits are done in studios.

Although I could understand the reality that most people using the 300 2.8 to take "portraits" are most likely using it to take photos of people in public without their knowledge...

Like the image posted here?

But that wouldn't make a lot of difference anyway, as most or at least many People Pictures taken in public, even with much shorter focal length lenses than any 300mm, are taken without the knowledge, and certainly without prior concent, of the people imaged.

Most Street Photography (closely related to People Pictures or Portraiture) is very intentionally done with prior knowledge of the people photographed, simply because the subject of such photography is a candid relationship between people and their surroundings.

[Edit: Typo alert... that was supposed to say that Street is done without priors.]

The 300mm focal length has little to do with it. And even if that is true it is of no consequence anyway.

300mm is perfect fine for portraits. I'm partial to my 70-200 VRII and 85mm lenses, but the 300mm F4 or 2.8 are also quite good.

If someone has a rule saying 300mm is not good for portraits, then that's fine for them, but I could care less.

Lately I'm been playing with my Tamron 70-300 VC and it's quite nice at 300mm as well and easier to handle than the 300mm prime.

Robert

I love long lenses for portraiture because they allow me to capture a gesture or an expression without the subject being aware of me, a more natural pose if you know what I mean; obviously to handle a 300mm is not easy, even less if you have no time to prepare the shoot not to consider safety shutting speed, micro vibrations etc etc but once you get the shot it is really worth the pain carrying that much stuff IMHO

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Two more....

Nothing wrong with 300mm. Whoever was "bashing" needs a few photography lessons.

Robert

Isn't it amazing that a picture of a girl in a bikini with any lens, no one minds. But portrait with a 300? how could you think of such a thing.

Like one poster said, whatever works.

Typically, 85-135 is considered ideal for portrait but I have seen plenty of amazing portraits taken with wide angle lenses.

As you know shooting with a very wide angle lens up close makes the nose appear huge and distorts the face. So think about it: Move back and shoot with a long lens and you minimize the nose. I was taught in portraiture class to shoot at the longest reasonable focal length to achieve the most-flattering result. Most of my studio portraits are shot with the 70-200mm II as close to 200mm as I can get. Personally, I thing doing portraits with the 85mm is not as flattering to the subject as it is at 150mm or 180mm. Generally, you want to make the nose appear smaller. That means moving back.

Your shot of the young gentleman is excellent. Keep up the great work!

DotCom Editor wrote:

As you know shooting with a very wide angle lens up close makes the nose appear huge and distorts the face. So think about it: Move back and shoot with a long lens and you minimize the nose. I was taught in portraiture class to shoot at the longest reasonable focal length to achieve the most-flattering result. Most of my studio portraits are shot with the 70-200mm II as close to 200mm as I can get. Personally, I thing doing portraits with the 85mm is not as flattering to the subject as it is at 150mm or 180mm. Generally, you want to make the nose appear smaller. That means moving back.

Your shot of the young gentleman is excellent. Keep up the great work!

Longer focal lengths also distorts (although less noticeably) as it flattens the perspective. 85mm to 135mm(on full frame) gives the most natural perspective for headshots. I, too have seen many great portraits at long focal lengths but I don't agree that longer is always or even "generally" better.

I'm not a photographer at all, I just like to shoot and try to keep learning by my mistakes (lot of work to do...) but I gotta say that my personal taste goes for long focal lengths as it helps not to be seen in the act of hitting the shutter and as such grabbing a more natural "pose" but I understand that for "posed" pictures a mid focal length works the best, I myself love to use the 50mm with its shallow DOF but am not good at telling my subjects how to pose since when the camera is noticeably in the middle of the photographer and the subject it either takes to give directions on how to pose to the subject or to shoot and shoot till you grab a good one.

I do own an 80-200 which I love for portraits, towards long focal length the blur is very nice and never too hard but it becomes more and more difficult to work on safe shutter speeds (I have an old camera so I never push ISO too high) and trying to avoid shaking is hard but I like the results, I like them even more with the 300mm and, as far as I know, many pros use long lenses to, say, shoot fashion in open space as to help flatten the facial features and to help blur the background even thought it is close to the subject, besides these particular situations I guess 50 and 85mm are the most used focals to shoot portraits (an 85 is on my dreams list) either in studio or at close distance but for my taste I prefer longer to shoot an "unaware" pose or natural gestures.

Wide angle is definitely a no option for me, distortion is too evident, almost too difficult to blur out the background, too close to the subject, I used a 105DC a while ago, just a few shots, that was an amazing focal length and with time to play with the front ring to blur out everything it was a joy, I don't really see a real usage of such a feature as it takes too long to set it all up but between 50mm and 135mm is both FF and APS-C the best for portraiture, going longer helps candid shots with an even shallower DOF and flattened image which is not always what we look forward to in a portrait.

This is with a 300mm

This is at 80mm, still able to grab a natural expression

dom33 wrote:

DotCom Editor wrote:

As you know shooting with a very wide angle lens up close makes the nose appear huge and distorts the face. So think about it: Move back and shoot with a long lens and you minimize the nose. I was taught in portraiture class to shoot at the longest reasonable focal length to achieve the most-flattering result. Most of my studio portraits are shot with the 70-200mm II as close to 200mm as I can get. Personally, I thing doing portraits with the 85mm is not as flattering to the subject as it is at 150mm or 180mm. Generally, you want to make the nose appear smaller. That means moving back.

Your shot of the young gentleman is excellent. Keep up the great work!

Longer focal lengths also distorts (although less noticeably) as it flattens the perspective. 85mm to 135mm(on full frame) gives the most natural perspective for headshots. I, too have seen many great portraits at long focal lengths but I don't agree that longer is always or even "generally" better.

Little bit of misunderstanding there... The distortion is specifically perspective distortion, which is exactly what "flattens the perspective" means. But it is only indirectly related to focal length!

It's a matter of comparative distances; from the camera to object 1 as compared to the distance from object 1 to object 2. Or, camera to subject distance as compared to subject to background distance.

Where the lens focal length comes in is by allowing more (or less with a shorter focal length) camera to subject distance.

As to what is always or even generally better, that is not an objective determination, but rather a matter of taste or style.

To further muddy some water... there have been numerous wonderful looking examples posted, some with wide angle lenses, some with medium telephoto and some with fairly long telephoto. But look at all of the head shots showing a side profile! Guess what, those virtually make no difference at all what the focal length or camera to subject distance is, simply because with a profile the maximum differential for parts of the face is so small that there isn't any "flattening" at all!

An example where the difference is visible is a full or half body shot showing a person with one or both hands extended in front on them.

With roughly two feet distance from the hand to the face, if the camera subject distance is only 2 feet from those hands they will appear to be larger than the face. If the camera subject distance is 20 feet that will not be so. Whether the 20 foot shot is make with a 300mm lens or a 30mm lens and then cropped, the perspective distortion will be exactly the same.

apaflo wrote:

dom33 wrote:

DotCom Editor wrote:

As you know shooting with a very wide angle lens up close makes the nose appear huge and distorts the face. So think about it: Move back and shoot with a long lens and you minimize the nose. I was taught in portraiture class to shoot at the longest reasonable focal length to achieve the most-flattering result. Most of my studio portraits are shot with the 70-200mm II as close to 200mm as I can get. Personally, I thing doing portraits with the 85mm is not as flattering to the subject as it is at 150mm or 180mm. Generally, you want to make the nose appear smaller. That means moving back.

Your shot of the young gentleman is excellent. Keep up the great work!

Longer focal lengths also distorts (although less noticeably) as it flattens the perspective. 85mm to 135mm(on full frame) gives the most natural perspective for headshots. I, too have seen many great portraits at long focal lengths but I don't agree that longer is always or even "generally" better.

Little bit of misunderstanding there... The distortion is specifically perspective distortion, which is exactly what "flattens the perspective" means. But it is only indirectly related to focal length!

It's a matter of comparative distances; from the camera to object 1 as compared to the distance from object 1 to object 2. Or, camera to subject distance as compared to subject to background distance.

Where the lens focal length comes in is by allowing more (or less with a shorter focal length) camera to subject distance.

As to what is always or even generally better, that is not an objective determination, but rather a matter of taste or style.

To further muddy some water... there have been numerous wonderful looking examples posted, some with wide angle lenses, some with medium telephoto and some with fairly long telephoto. But look at all of the head shots showing a side profile! Guess what, those virtually make no difference at all what the focal length or camera to subject distance is, simply because with a profile the maximum differential for parts of the face is so small that there isn't any "flattening" at all!

An example where the difference is visible is a full or half body shot showing a person with one or both hands extended in front on them.

With roughly two feet distance from the hand to the face, if the camera subject distance is only 2 feet from those hands they will appear to be larger than the face. If the camera subject distance is 20 feet that will not be so. Whether the 20 foot shot is make with a 300mm lens or a 30mm lens and then cropped, the perspective distortion will be exactly the same.

Yes, thanks for clarifying.When Istated headshotson full frame, I implied adjust distance to fill frame and no cropping.

My point concerning "natural perspective" is that our eyes percieve closer objects to bebigger, so a nose is "naturally" perceived(a little) bigger than ears. And 85mm-135mm on a full frame, and at a subject distance to fill the frame with head and shoulders, gives approximately the same perspective as our eyes. -- Yes -- art, taste, style, breaking "rules", and "muddy water"must beconsidered.

From some of the examples, there seems to be a bit of confusion regarding what constitutes portraits. Strictly speaking street shots of faces is not really portraiture as a genre: it's street shooting. When most photographers speak of portraiture, we are referring to the subject being actively engaged in the process of capturing the image, whether candid or posed. This process can involve any focal length depending upon the situation and intent of the photographer.

With this in mind, howfocal length is used is dependent on the desired outcome of the photo as much as other "mechanics". Yes, a longer focal length with a given subject size can be more flattering. But go too long and the compression gives the photo a flat look. Of course, this may be the intended effect. There's a famous photo of Jimmy Durante in which a wide angle lens used specifically to accentuate his famous nose.

Back in the 70's, it became popular to do fashion shoots with 300mm lenses or even longer, even though they were full body shots. The compression effect along with the bokeh was a new look for fashion, and the popularity of the look has remained.

The reality is each photographer should be working on developing a personal style. Successful professionals especially gain prominence through a personal style that sets their work apart from others. Then others copy that style, of course!

CharlesB58 wrote:

From some of the examples, there seems to be a bit of confusion regarding what constitutes portraits. Strictly speaking street shots of faces is not really portraiture as a genre: it's street shooting. When most photographers speak of portraiture, we are referring to the subject being actively engaged in the process of capturing the image, whether candid or posed. This process can involve any focal length depending upon the situation and intent of the photographer.

None of that is valid or true.

First off, "Street Photography" has only a weak link to something being shot on a city street. Street Photography, despite the name, is photographing the relationship between people and their surroundings. It can be rural or urban, it can be inside or outside... it doesn't even require that actual people are in the photograph! But obviously the most commonly seen Street shots are of people on urban sidewalks...

In relation to the comment above, the point is that a portrait is a photograph of a person, not of the relationship between that person and their surroundings as such. It can be a very fine line, and "Environmental Portraits" might also be "Street Photography", or at least so close to each other that it is impossible to say which it is. But the primary thing is that a portrait with no details showing "surrounding" cannot be Street Photography.

And virtually all of the examples that have been posted using long focal lengths have been strictly portraiture, with the background either totally blurred or sufficiently reduced in significance to make the image only about the character of the person and not about surroundings.

It is almost impossible, but not totally, to have a head shot that is also Street Photography. It is a little easier, but still difficult, to get a Street shot that is a head and shoulders or 1/2 body shot. Whatever clothing or other ornaments that exist to provide a relationship to "surroundings" has to have a very dominating affect to make it work.

The reality is each photographer should be working on developing a personal style. Successful professionals especially gain prominence through a personal style that sets their work apart from others. Then others copy that style, of course!

Excellent comment!

apaflo wrote:

CharlesB58 wrote:

From some of the examples, there seems to be a bit of confusion regarding what constitutes portraits. Strictly speaking street shots of faces is not really portraiture as a genre: it's street shooting. When most photographers speak of portraiture, we are referring to the subject being actively engaged in the process of capturing the image, whether candid or posed. This process can involve any focal length depending upon the situation and intent of the photographer.

None of that is valid or true.

It is according to numerous periodicals,stock agenciesand professional organizations such as the PPA and SMPA, who do in fact define genres along professional, not anecdotal parameters. Or try to submit a membership application to the United Portrait Photographers Association based on "street portraits".

First off, "Street Photography" has only a weak link to something being shot on a city street. Street Photography, despite the name, is photographing the relationship between people and their surroundings. It can be rural or urban, it can be inside or outside... it doesn't even require that actual people are in the photograph! But obviously the most commonly seen Street shots are of people on urban sidewalks...

In relation to the comment above, the point is that a portrait is a photograph of a person, not of the relationship between that person and their surroundings as such. It can be a very fine line, and "Environmental Portraits" might also be "Street Photography", or at least so close to each other that it is impossible to say which it is. But the primary thing is that a portrait with no details showing "surrounding" cannot be Street Photography.

And virtually all of the examples that have been posted using long focal lengths have been strictly portraiture, with the background either totally blurred or sufficiently reduced in significance to make the image only about the character of the person and not about surroundings.

It is almost impossible, but not totally, to have a head shot that is also Street Photography. It is a little easier, but still difficult, to get a Street shot that is a head and shoulders or 1/2 body shot. Whatever clothing or other ornaments that exist to provide a relationship to "surroundings" has to have a very dominating affect to make it work.

See my point above. I'm not talking about stylistic definitions of genres so much as what professional organizations determine to be portrait photography per se. Yes, "street photography" is a nebulous term, and IMO the many shots of people's backs that are passed off as street photography shouldn't even make it past the delete button. Similarly, there are many who consider themselves "street photographers" who will come up to subjects and take photos with short focal lengths.

My point is that from a professional standpoint, portraiture photography is going to involve engagement between the photographer and subject in ways that may or may not stray into the realm of "street photography". I believe my point is quite germane to the OP because the tone of his post reflects the idea thatsome feel that shooting a"standard portrait" (as in studio and/or posed)should not be done with a 300mm focal length.

The reality is each photographer should be working on developing a personal style. Successful professionals especially gain prominence through a personal style that sets their work apart from others. Then others copy that style, of course!

Excellent comment!

Thanks.

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Wait, you can't use 300mm for portraits!?? Dangit, I've been doing it wrong for the past four years! Why didn't somebody tell me!!? ;P

Olympus 150mm f2 (300mm equiv)

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