08-29-2016, 01:14 PM
90% of the portraits in the gallery are centered, half of it studio shots and/or cropped to be centerred. But also for the rest, there hardly will be a lot of shots to show the subject in a corner - and if, it's mostly wide angle and distortion already drops in as well.
But: The reason to ask for portait samples mostly is the bokeh, and therefore I also could say, playcards as used in PZ tests don't say much about bokeh or not :wacko: there's nothing compared to the real proportions of "normal" portrait distance without being a studio shot.
I cannot see a reason to take a low quality or slow lens for portaits just because I need them to be unsharp enough to cover skin inpurities or wrinkles. I like to see sharp eyes, eyelashes, maybe jewellry - and the rest is a matter of softening the skin. Which is also necessary with a low quality lens at f/8. A sharp picture can always be treated selectively with Gaussian blurr. An unsharp picture will not get more details by using an unsharp mask. Also, if I want to accentuate only an eye or another part of a face, nothing beats a fast lens
As for CA: A lot of my portraits with Nikkor 85/1.4G wide open with front light suffer of CA. I find the dealing with it possible, but unnecessary and waste of time - a lens without or with less CA can be a time saver, not only for wedding stuff.
But: The reason to ask for portait samples mostly is the bokeh, and therefore I also could say, playcards as used in PZ tests don't say much about bokeh or not :wacko: there's nothing compared to the real proportions of "normal" portrait distance without being a studio shot.
I cannot see a reason to take a low quality or slow lens for portaits just because I need them to be unsharp enough to cover skin inpurities or wrinkles. I like to see sharp eyes, eyelashes, maybe jewellry - and the rest is a matter of softening the skin. Which is also necessary with a low quality lens at f/8. A sharp picture can always be treated selectively with Gaussian blurr. An unsharp picture will not get more details by using an unsharp mask. Also, if I want to accentuate only an eye or another part of a face, nothing beats a fast lens
As for CA: A lot of my portraits with Nikkor 85/1.4G wide open with front light suffer of CA. I find the dealing with it possible, but unnecessary and waste of time - a lens without or with less CA can be a time saver, not only for wedding stuff.