If you are a professional portrait photographer, the 85mm lens is undoubtedly the most commonly used.  85mm focal length can bring appropriate characters and environment description to the picture, and easy to obtain the effect of a blur, is indeed a good lens necessary at home.  This article will explore why to use an 85mm lens for portrait photography.  

1. 85mm: Classic focal length  

The 85mm is neither long nor short and is an easy-to-use focal length.  Using this focal length for portraits allows you to easily switch between a bust and a full-length portrait without too much distortion.  Whether it’s a full-frame camera or an APS-C frame camera, you’ll always find yourself at the right distance from your subject with an 85mm lens.  This distance is necessary for shooting on many occasions, and it is a pity to have a 35mm lens and not be able to get close to the subject.  Both in the film era and now in the digital era, 85mm focal length is highly valued.  

2. Why use an 85mm lens for portrait photography?  

(1) The picture is free of distortion  

If not excessive exaggerated effect, portrait everybody also tends to control the image distortion to a minimum, the best is not visible to the naked eye zero distortion effect, from the point of the focal length, the telephoto image distortion will be more and more small, 85 mm has been basically can’t see any distortion, for the authenticity of the character image restoration is very in place, don’t go to shoot a man look fat,  It will not be compressed and thin, and the perspective is just right.  

(2) The photographer can maintain a reasonable communication distance with the subject  

In the photographer’s shooting process, the 85mm focal segment can keep a good shooting distance between the photographer and the subject, unlike the super-telephoto lens. If you want to shoot a whole body, the photographer needs to run far, and communication with the subject needs to rely on Shouting;  You don’t have to be as close to your subject as you would with a wide-angle lens.  85mm brings the distance between the photographer and the subject to be just the right distance for normal communication, and it will not give people a very aggressive lens, so it is a very suitable lens for portrait shooting.  

(3) Bokeh  

You can use multiple lenses (including 35mm and 50mm) to get bokeh in portrait photography – you should consider purchasing these two lenses as your first prime lens.  However, 85mm is arguably your best bet.  

In portrait photography, you can use 85 mm to fill the model with more frames and enlarge the aperture.  Bokeh photography with an 85mm lens is fun at night or in neon, where you can experiment with a variety of background colors and lighting.  

(4) Excellent optical quality  

A lot of times when you buy a prime lens, you’re looking for a shallow depth of field, and the 85mm is good at that.  The optical quality of the 85mm lens is often very high so that the picture has a pleasant background blur and high sharpness of the main performance, which really will let a person fondle.  85mm lens general color difference is not big, like the deformation of the field is not big, the aperture erosion of the blurred spot is not too serious, now 85mm lens optical system has been very good, trusted.  

(5) Can take a variety of landscape portrait photos from close-up to panorama  

The adaptability of this lens to the portrait theme is very high, from the local close-ups to the whole body can be shot, there is no wide-angle lens to shoot close-ups of exaggerated deformation, and there is no longer a focal segment of the depth of field is too shallow to control the situation, shooting the whole body can also have a good subject highlight effect.  

To sum up, 85mm focal length lens for portrait shooting due to a relatively small range of Angle of view, people in the picture accounted for more, and some daily shooting such as home travel, still life portrait can have a good effect, and the biggest advantage of the prime lens in light and high film quality,  So the 85mm prime lens is better than other portraits.