When you first buy a new camera lens, it can be difficult to know which lens is right for you.  This decision will affect the photos you take, so it must be handled correctly.  Many photographers see the 85mm lens as a great choice for portrait photography but are unaware of its use elsewhere.  

While it’s considered a professional option, the 85mm lens is more versatile than you might think.  It can provide excellent results in many types of photography, and using one of them can help you unleash your creativity in ways you never thought possible.  In this tutorial, I will focus on how to shoot outdoors with an 85mm lens.  

1. How to shoot outdoors with an 85mm lens?  

Step one, set the ISO between 100 and 400 so that you don’t get too much graininess or blur when shooting outdoors or indoors without the flash.  Then determine what aperture setting will allow enough natural light to enter the photo while capturing all the focus of objects from near to far (remember the physics lesson on perspective distortion?).  .  Try to start with F /16 and adjust as needed until you are happy with the results.  

Step two, the next thing to do is adjust the shutter speed, as it controls how much ambient light you let in, while also capturing motion or blur effects.  Being too slow can lead to blurred subjects, which doesn’t look good when photographing people or other creatures.  Try to start with a 125 second/second setting and adjust downward as needed until everything looks clear from front to back.  

Third, after dialing in these two Settings, don’t forget the ISO — it should be set to between 100 and 400 depending on the scene brightness — and make sure the white balance matches what looks natural under lighting conditions (i.e., cloudy on a cloudy day). This way you can capture the true colors without adding any filters or effects.  

As a final step, get creative with the 85mm lens and try different angles to see how it changes the perspective in the image.  If you want to capture the small appearance of a large object such as a building, shoot from below for a lower Angle or from above the object.  Use your camera’s LCD screen as a guide when shooting outdoors, rather than simply relying on what is displayed through the lens itself, as this will help avoid any errors that may lead to inaccuracies when importing post-processing software later.  

2. Q&A  

85mm lens or 50mm lens?  

If you want to photograph an object at a medium distance, 85mm works best.  It is better for people and wildlife than a 50mm lens because it allows you to get close to your subject without getting in your way.  

If you don’t know what you’re doing, stick with a 50mm lens, as you can get great pictures without worrying about controlling the depth of field effect.  It’s not great for taking pictures of moving subjects because it’s slow to autofocus and doesn’t create much background blur.  

If you’re not going to take candid shots of people (in low light), the 85mm lens is better for indoors at night.  If you’re shooting from a courtside basketball court, a 50mm lens is fine.  

Is an 85mm lens suitable for street photography?  

85mm is a good focal length for the street photography I do.  It’s not close enough to really bother people, but it’s not so far away that you get completely out of the action.  

What can I shoot with an 85 mm lens?  

The 85mm lens is best for close-up shots of people and other people, plants, and animals, which means that aperture priority mode should be used more often than shutter priority or fully manual mode.  

What does 85 mm mean?  

What is special about the 85mm focal length?  Unlike the 50mm lens, which we also noticed is a very popular focal length for portrait photography, 85mm is a true telephoto lens.  Basically, this means the lens offers a more compact field of view, as well as a degree of magnification and compression.