“You can only use a 50-150mm lens for portraits”.

Nope. You can use any lens, just about. It’s a matter of matching the kind of portrait to the most suitable lens. Somewhat like this:

So you do not shoot a headshot with a very wide lens. But as you see, almost any type of lens can be used for portraits of one sort or another.

• For stand-alone portrait, the longer the better. But you may not have space to use a 200mm lens.
• For groups, wide or very wide is OK . Keep people away from the edges or they will stretch.
• A Macro lens makes a good portrait lens.
• For available light photos, you use a fast lens.
• For environmental portraits, you use a wide lens, making sure your subject is not too large in the image.

I am going to be at the Henry’s Imaging show in Mississauga all three days, Friday to Sunday, talking about “the right lens for the job”. Come see me if you like!

Lenses are worth the money you spend on them. At the risk of repeating myself, let me show you why.

A good lens focuses fast. It is well-built and strong. It has little aberration and edge distortion. It is silent. It has better coatings and resistance to flare. Most importantly, it has a larger aperture (a smaller “f-number”), hence more glass.

But also very importantly, it is sharper.

Look here. Click on this image and then click on “orginal size”, and then view it at original size. Make sure you follow all those steps.

(24-70 lens at 24mm, at f/8, 1/125th second, 100 ISO; using studio strobes).

When you do that, you basically get to DNA-level.

“But I do not want my face to be so sharp!”.

Yes you do. You want your eye, eyelashes and soon, to be sharp. Skin you can blur later if you wish, but the basic image must be sharp.

And that is why a good lens (e.g. in the Canon-world, an “L”-lens, where “L” stands for “Luxury) is worth every penny. (And they cost a lot of pennies – but the lens will last you twenty years, both technically and in economic terms).

I am repeating myself, I know – but this is important. In lenses, there are few shortcuts (except an affordable 50mm lens, which is why if you do not yet have one, go get one now!)

I like to shoot with many lenses. Wide (16-35 on full frame), long (70-200 on crop), and fast primes.

But the one “general purpose” lens I keep going back to is the 24-70 f/2.8L. First of all, this lens is sharp:

Self portrait, detail (view at full size)

You like crazy sharp? This lens is crazy sharp.

The main thing about this lens, however, is that it can be used for almost any shoot. For instance, for music school portraits like today’s:

Michael Willems - demo portrait

But also for headshots, environmental portraits, events, travel, low-ish light shots, and much more. Its fast speed (i.e. the low f-number, a constant 2.8 throughout its zoom range) allows you to blur backgrounds well, and allows its use in low light. This is why photojournalists keep that lens in the bag and on the camera.

Today’s shoot was a music school and tomorrow’s is the same – all day. If you wonder how the shots above were lit: three Bowens studio lights; an umbrella, a softbox and a snoot. Here’s the softbox:

Softbox during music school shoot

A softbox gives you a large area and hence soft light. For studio I use a large softbox; for on-the go shoots I use the Honl Traveller 8 softbox on a speedlight. (As you know, Dave Honl will be helping me teach a course in Toronto on March 19; he is in London today, where yesterday he taught a course to Matteo, a young friend and student who has taken a number of my courses. Small world!)

A student recently asked me to explain to his or her spouse (anonymity will be preserved) why it is worth investing in lenses.

Michael in The Plaid Chair

And indeed I am happy to do this. Not because I have any stake in selling lenses (I teach, at various venues including Henry’s School of Imaging, but I have no stake in selling anything anywhere). But because:

1. I strongly believe the lens is the most important part of photographic equipment between you and a great picture.
2. A lens keeps its value much better than a camera does.

Let me explain.

• The lens determines how sharp your picture is. Good lenses are simply sharper, and with today’s sensors this difference is noticeable.
• The lens determines how fast your shutter speed is. And hence, how blurry the image. A faster lens (“fast” means “how wide is the aperture”, i.e. “how low is the minimum F-number this lens can go to”) means more light can get in – which means faster shutter speeds are possible at the same ISO.
• The lens determines how blurry you can make the background. An f/2.8 lens gives you, if you want it, a much blurrier background than a consumer-grade f/3.5-5.6 lens. A “prime” (fixed) f/1.4 lens, even more so.
• Good lenses focus faster, are quieter, have better “bokeh” (look better where they are out of focus), are water- and dust-sealed, and so on.

Those are very important factors whose importance it is almost impossible to overstate. Photojournalists like me use f/2.8 zoom lenses and f/1.4 primes. for a reason. For several reasons.

And finally- a lens keeps its value. A camera – not so much (next year it is worth half; a afew years later it has $0 value). A good lens keeps its value for decades.This is because 20 years from now it will still do what it does today (let through photons), and because the intrinsic value of the optical glass is a larger part of the value of the lens.

This is why lenses are worth buying. They make much more difference to images than the camera does, and they are a much safer investment.

Another word today about lenses, many of which I have mentioned before: here are my  four favourite for lenses for shooting events.

1. 35mm f/1.4 prime – for low-light “people, camera aware” events. Its large aperture makes it ideal for clubs.
2. 16-35 f/2.8 zoom – for events with groups of people, or events in small rooms. Its wide angle makes it idea for cramped rooms and dramatic leading lines.
3. 24-70 f/2.8 zoom – for general purpose events, where you do not know what you will encounter. Its wide range makes it ideal as an all-round lens for events,
4. 70-200 f/2.8 zoom – for candid shots. Its long focal length makes it great to catch those unexpected portraits-from-a-distance, camera-unaware.

So those are the four lenses I use most. I also use 50mm prime lenses, 100mm macro lenses, and others, but for most events I can grab one or two of the above and be well equipped.

Do you need all four? No. But yo uight want to start saving for the one or two that are most useful for the type of events you shoot.