On Nov 23, 2007, at 10:23 AM, Joseph Tainter wrote: > "Human beings don't recognize faces by fine details and sharp, > detailed > portraits don't look like the way we remember the faces of people we > know.That's why the "portrait lens" has long been quite a different > animal form lenses intended for other purposes." > > ----- > > I've never owned a lens designed primarily for portraiture, but from > what I understand, they are not supposed to be overly sharp. I am > puzzled, then, about the reports of the FA* 85 F1.4. It is reputed > to be > very sharp close in, but a little worse for landscape shots than > the FA 77. > > Can anyone clarify? > > The forthcoming DA 55 F1.4 is presumably a successor to the 85.
Portraits need to be sharp ... particularly the eyes ... but fine details are less important than flattering the subject (if that's the point of the photograph). A lens designed for portraiture is generally designed to perform best near wide open for shallow DoF and in the 5-10 foot focus range. And to have good out-of-focus rendering qualities, again to support the shallow DoF approach to portraiture. Really good lenses perform well throughout the focusing range, of course. I don't know anything about the FA*85 specifically. The M85/2 was a fine portrait lens, but a little long for my tastes on the DSLR bodies. The DA70 Limited and FA43 Limited make excellent lenses for portraiture at large apertures while also being excellent for landscape work stopped down. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
