So you got a busy background. The 85mm is perfect.
It's going to really get smushed out of focus.
We're talking like Nutella buttery focus.
That's I know you're going to love the 85mm
because if you love Nutella, you're gonna
love the 85mm.
And if you don't love Nutella,
you're not a human being.
And if you don't love the 85mm, you're not
a portrait photographer.
I got... let's just keep going.
The 85mm Prime and lenses like it
are a staple for your portrait photography
toolkit.
And in this video, I want to give
you four reasons as to why.
As well as a user guide on how to use it.
My name is Pye and I'm one of the founders
of Lin and Jirsa Photography and
SLRLounge.com.
We're teaming up with Adorama to
bring you a new series of photography tutorials,
called Master Your Craft right here on
Adorama TV. So let's dive in.
What's up, my friends?
My name is Pye.
I'm going to be honest, it is 2 a.m.
I couldn't sleep last night, so
I was like, I'm just gonna go in and start filming.
And what am I filming today?
We're talking about the 85mmn prime.
And this particular 85, as you can see, has
been marked up because my buddy Carlo,
who loaned it to me, is very paranoid
about me stealing it.
Apparently, the first thing that
I want to mention is that this user guide
really applies to the 85mm or prime
lens, as well as lenses that act in a similar
way.
And what I mean by that is when it comes
to other primes that I kind of use in an exact
same manner, we have the Sigma art 105mm.
This thing is ridiculous.
This is the f/1.8.
This is the 105mm, f/1.4.
Yeah, it's a little nutso.
So I use it the exact same way, in fact,
the 105mm is kind of my replacement,
my tool kit for my 85mm.
So I generally don't take both.
Another lens that kind of operates like it
is like 100mm macro.
These are all lenses that you can use
in the exact same manner and follow the same
user guide.
So let's go ahead and jump into
reason number one, why this is such a
great portrait lens.
The 85mm focal length is wonderful for
anything full length,
all the way up to tight portraits.
So it's great for close ups.
Now here's what I mean.
I love shooting portraits with a 24mm
or 35mm a 50mm.
But whenever we start getting tight, we
have to be aware that these wider
angle lenses are going to cause distortion
on the face, even on a 50mm.
If you're shooting close on the face.
You're gonna get distortion.
So usually when it comes to, say,
like a 50mm, I'm not really getting
any closer then.
Generally, this type of a shot you might
punch in the face, but the
closer you get, the more you really have to
be aware that we want to keep the subject
in the center of the frame.
We don't want to use the edges because
you are going to start to distort.
If that's desirable by all means.
Sometimes we use that for a fact and
case in point.
I often do use distortion to
kind of create an exaggerated look.
This is shot in a 24mm while on a 24-70mm at 24mm.
And here we're using that kind of edge distortion
to really add a lot of energy to our photograph here.
So we're getting everybody in the frame and
you can see, that anyone towards the edges
of this shot is going to kind of be pulled
and warped a little bit, because of that lens distortion.
Once we jumped to an 85mm though,
we don't have any of those issues.
So if I want to get tight for a portrait, this
is kind of really more of a headshot of our bride.
Right.
So I can get tight on this type of
a shot.
And this was actually captured on
a 100mm macro.
So, again, using the 100mm almost the
exact same way as an 85mm.
And we're still going to have really
beautiful fall off in the background of this
lens.
This is shot again on 100mm
and kind of the benefits of being on like, say,
100 mm macros.
Now, you could use it the exact same way.
You also get that super tight, punch
in kind of well, opportunity, with the 100
macro, that you wouldn't necessarily get on,
say, an 85mm.
That might limit your focal distance.
Right. So that's one of the benefits.
The trade off, obviously, for that particular
lens is that is not going to open out as wide.
We're gonna talk about that in just a moment.
But here is an 85mm shot of Shivani.
Again, we can frame towards the center.
We can frame, well we can frame portrait.
It doesn't really matter with that 85mm
we're not going to get any of that edit distortion,
or at least enough of it to be noticeable.
Number two is the exaggerated depth of field
that the 85mm prime and primes like
it have, when shooting wide open.
Ok, so it's super simple.
You've got a busy background.
Get it backlit. It could be by the sun.
You get out of a flash, whatever
it is. Get it backlit.
Shoot it wide open.
It's a recipe for success every time.
I mean, look at this image here.
My friends ask for like a quick portrait
and we're literally standing on the
sidewalk of their house.
I'm like, oh, it's backlit.
There's leaves that are back in the background.
I'm going to grab an 85mm.
Shoot this at f/1.2, f/1.4, f/1.8 .
It's gonna look good regardless.
OK, so , you got a busy background.
The 85mm is perfect. It's going
to really get smushed out of focus. We're talking like Nutella buttery focus. That's
how I know you're gonna love the 85.
Because if you love Nutella, you're gonna love the 85. And if you don't love Nutella,
you're not a human being.
And if you don't love the 4:52, you're not a portrait photographer. I got let's just
keep going.
So this is the 85 Zeiss OTA's. Now, this is a manual focus lens. These are kind of considered
the top the line when it comes to premium sharp lenses. Honestly, I've loved every 4:52.
I've worked with the cheap ones, the expensive ones. Everything is good these days. So if
it can't open up wide, you're gonna get the exact same look in effect. Here's the deal
with manual focus lenses.
They are a pain in the butt. OK, so the overall kind of usability for a lot of people is going
to make lenses like this a nicety, but they're going to become very cumbersome in using butstill
it creates absolutely beautiful images. You get that tax our focal plane and we're going
to talk about, well, focusing when shooting wide open in a separate video. I think that's
a worthwhile topic because I'll get a lot of questions on that. So look at this. The
Volt wagon by which is really just a couple feet behind them, is already starting to get
smushed out of focus. And yet the leaves and everything like that, they're just destroyed.
We have destroyed our I mean, and in a really pretty kind of way, this is that same land,
that same Fogelman that's going to give you these very buttery, soft flare effects. And
I'm using that term a lot. But this is on the 85. I think that's just on a standard
85 1/4. Again, every variation of this lens I've used is just fantastic. There's another
great example of how the 85 makes everything good. OK. Because all I'm doing here is I'm
shooting from a higher perspective down onto my bride. And what you see behind my bride
is the sidewalk, a really crappy sidewalk. But what I know is that, well, even a sidewalk,
when it's blurred and out of focus, especially when it kind of carries in the distance, it
has like a very nice kind of petina, almost texture to it.
When you rendered like 1.2 or 1.4, 1.8 when you shoot a wide open with these apertures.
So I'm placing the sidewalk, which is kind of the brighter area behind my subject, using
lable leaves to block part of it. Load of interest and we get this shot. Point number
three. We have compression. OK, so when I talk about compression, we often confuse us
with lens compression. Well, it's really perspective compression. And if you are super technical
out there, please do not murder me. Either way, it's going to operate the exact same
way. But what we're talking about here is perspective compression and the eighty five
is wonderful for it. But what the heck does that mean? Well, perspective compression is
essentially on an 85 or longer focal length. We're having to stand back. And essentially
what we're doing is zooming on the scene. And that overall effect, that distance within
our subject and then zooming in, kind of gives the illusion that the background is being
pulled closer to our subject. Again, this is perspective compression. Right. And what
we get is these columns that are in the background. They appear closer to our subjects than they
actually are. And so for repeating backgrounds are for pulling back on forward, it's a beautiful
effect because it makes it look like they're rows rose. You can tell I get super excited
about perspective compression, OK, but it makes it look like these rows of of arches
and lines like this shot are just dropping behind our subject.
We don't get that look on a 24 or 35 or a 50. We get it at, say, 70, 85. And really,
it becomes more and more exagerate as we keep zooming in. But the 85 is such a beautiful,
sweet spot for it. Same with the 4:59, because along with those prime lenses, along with
that focal length, you're getting that wide aperture. And when you use those two in conjunction,
you get the the buttery compression. Let's just let we'll call it buttery compression.
Another usage for this is leading lines. Right. So here we're using the 4:59 for the same
effect and kind of using this wall in the lines of that wall to lead right into our
subject. OK. So last but not least is number four, which is background control, the 85
millimeter at this focal length. We have a lot of back on control because we have multiple
things working in conjunction. In fact, it's really all the things that we mentioned that
kind of work in conjunction that give us that control. We have our wide aperture, we have
that tighter focal length and we have the ability to kind of get perspective compression
and pull our backgrounds and do a little bit of manipulation there. And with that, we can
get shots like this where we're essentially shooting at a distance. We're framing our
subject over the ocean, which is really quite far away there, standing on a cliff side.
We're standing pretty far away and shooting right across, make them very small and creating
a lot of negative space in our shot.
We can do that. We can use scenes like this. This is a fun one because this is shot on
the 1 0 5. And we are in Los Angeles next to a parking lot. Next to a street. Yeah,
it would look like we're standing in the middle of field. Right. But between the depth of
field, between our compression, between just background framing control. We can make this
look like we're in a completely different area. Same thing with this again, shot on
a sidewalk next to a moving truck in the middle of a parking lot in two busy streets. We can
make it look like we're just in this perfect field type set and shooting these beautiful
images when in reality it's really not. Same thing with this shot. We're shooting literally
10 feet from where this camera is positioned right in our office next to our window. And
if you issue any wider on the scene, you would realize it's really not that special of anything
in the shot really lowers in quality the wider you go. But the 85, the 4:59, a 135. All of
these lenses that kind of operate in that space give us so much control the background
and so much control over what the viewer sees. And they're really beautiful for that. With
all that guidance, I do want to give you two quick cons, because while the 85 and Lynda's
like it are beautiful for portraits, there's two things you kind of need to remember.
These are not the focal length that I would typically use in tighter spaces, like if you're
walking into a room and you want something as a bit versatile, but it's a tight space.
The 4:52 is gonna be difficult. You're gonna be very much limited on your compositions
in tighter spaces. So you need a little bit of distance to kind of work. The second con
is that lenses like an 85 that can shoot wide open are generally going to be slower to focus.
Now this is gonna be kind of varying based on the version and the camera that you're
using, but if you're comparing them to quick focused lenses like, say, a 24, 70 or two
hundred, it doesn't really matter. You're gonna be disappointed when you're shooting
high speed motion journalism, moving objects, all that kind of stuff is gonna be a bit cumbersome
and honestly probably frustrating when you're trying to do it on an 85. That's it for this
video. I hope you guys enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments, what you want to
see going forward. Leave a comment below the video description. I do my best to kind of
get to reading all of them and getting your guys's feedback. Also, I'd love for you to
subscribe to the ad on a TV channel. You guys can find me at S.R. Lounge. You can also follow
me at pie. Jezza and I'll see y'all in the next video by.