Street shooting with a portrait lens

[olivermoss]

My portrait lens has the tightest DoF of all my lenses. I've done concert photography, but I rarely shoot people who aren't on stages and wanted to learn. I got a portrait lens to learn with, but it arrived the week lockdown started.



Using a portrait lens for shooting a city as night has been a mixed experience. It's great for subject separation. The out of focus areas are gorgeous:



Also Portland has a LOT of skeletons, and shooting them like people works well.

On one hand, gorgeous boke, great subject separation, and a faster shutter speed which is key for night shoots.

On the end other hand, it's hard to be taking shots from so far back. It's a 90mm equivalent so I need to find a place to be a good chunk back from the subject.

Also, the lens has a softness I am not used to. I am used to lenses that are unforgivingly clear. This lens is more like 'fine texture? I don't now her'. The softness gives the images a film/analog look that is nice and arty, but I also find it frustrating. Still, the first picture in this post is my fave picture that I've taken recently.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

I love the soft look it gives! The skeleton portrait and the flowers are especially lovely with that effect. And something about the rainbow car is... kind of haunting? In a good way? It's evoking a particular feeling/vibe for me that I can't quite articulate.

(Though I'm sorry it's a tradeoff for the crisp quality from some other lenses.)

[olivermoss]

I think the shots look great, but it's different from what I used to. When I am editing shots, on my first pass I judge them by the clarity of the shot's focus point and that doesn't work here. It's hard to break that 'super clear = good' mentality.

I love the rainbow car pic. I've tried to shoot it before in the same location, but the shots turned out too dark/ high ISO. Since this prime is a fast prime, it can handle low light better.

99% of the time I shoot with the same set up: My 50mm equiv on my Pen and my 24-200 equiv on my OMD. I know exactly where to stand to frame a 50mm shot how I want and the zoomy lens can grab just about anything. The portrait lens is just so fussy to use. It's worth it, but it's got a learning curve and it can be hard to find a way to be so far back from the subject.

[mistressofmuses]

I can definitely see it being a challenge when you need so much more space to get the shot, especially in potentially crowded (with stuff, if not people) areas.