# Is an F4 lens good enough for portrait and group shots?



## karlish (Jun 28, 2015)

Hi All,
First post from my side.. let's see 

I am thinking of buying a full frame camera soon and I am looking for a good lens to start of with. A general purpose lens would suit my needs. I currently have a Canon 450D with a 18-55 + 55-250 + a 50mm 1.8 lenses + a flashgun.

I am into portrait and party shots and also small events shot in churches. Although I use a flashgun most of the time, I wanted a lens that will capture enough light for sharp images without the need to use the flash.

So far my research brought me to a conclusion that the Sigma 24-105mm f4 OS lens is a pretty good lens to start of with. My only worry is that f4 as I continue reading people saying that for low light situations you will have to crank uo the ISO and decrease by half the shutter speed. Will that be a big deal with my possible new purchase the Canon 6D?

Cheers!


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## jaomul (Jun 28, 2015)

Well a full frame sensor will do better than crop generally, so yes an f4 is well capable. I had a 24-105 with a 5d and did some nice portraits. 

Bigger aperture lenses can obviously do better in lower light with better seperation between subject and background, but there is always better than you can afford


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## Bryston3bsst (Jun 28, 2015)

The 50 1.8 is pretty fast but I think a 50 is too short for portraiture due to distortion. I like to be at around 100mm or so when doing portrait work. Foe more casual shots at parties and your church work it should be fine. 

I have a Canon 24-105 f4 that I use for portraiture fairly often. Shot toward the long end it gives great results. Shooting indoors without a flash, especially when your dealing with groups, lighting is going to be a problem. It will hard to even light on faces.

Not sure what you're talking about when you say "_crank uo the ISO and decrease by half the shutter speed." _You would increase ISO to keep the shutter speed high enough to reduce motion blur. The ambient light will determine where you need to go with ISO and, in turn, your shutter speed. 

The 6D won't be bothered in the least by higher ISO. You mention you're looking at a 6D. That camera comes with the Canon 24-105 f4. That's a very popular package plus I believe currently there is a pretty decent rebate on it. I would suggest looking at that rather than buying the Sigma.


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## karlish (Jun 28, 2015)

Thanks a lot Bryston3bsst! 
At this point in time I think I will have to see how the indoor shooting will look like with the 50mm and the 24-105.

Your remark on the iso/shutter seepd is spot on I think. I was just confused whether the fixed aperature of the lens will be an issue if I have to go to extrems with the shutter and ISO.

Thanks for the suggestion re the 24-105 f4. The thing is that the kit lens is not the L version. The sigma one I am looking at is a current challenger to the 24-105 f4 L version of the Canon, and it has the IS. Seemingly it has good results, although I am a little bit skeptic being that it will not be a Canon!


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## FKP007 (Jun 28, 2015)

24-105 is a competent lens and very versatile especially if you ever start shooting video. It's wide range is very convenient. However as a past wedding photographer I found myself wishing for a wider aperture and moving to the 24-70 2.8L was the way forward. 70 mm was fine for portraits (3/4 full half length) and even tight head shots showed little distortion. I have played with the new mark 2 version of this lens and it is a beauty but the price tag really is high. 

Personally I would stick with 24-105 and purchase the magnificent 85mm 1.8. perfect focal length and fast. Tack sharp and a good value.

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## raventepes (Jun 28, 2015)

Another wedding photographer here. 

An f4 would do pretty good, but like FKP007 says, eventually you're going to want to get something faster, like the f2.8 range. Personally, I'd get the f4 as a good "startup" lens, and buy a 24-70 and a 70-200, both at f2.8 when money can afford.


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## KmH (Jun 28, 2015)

The lens doesn't have a fixed aperture, it has a maximum constant aperture of f/4 when zoomed, but can be stopped down to a smaller apertures in 1/3 stop increments.


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## FKP007 (Jun 28, 2015)

Image Stabilisation on the lens is excellent and helps when hitting those slower shutter speeds. 70-200 2.8 is my fav lens which I use for 90% of my beauty portrait and fashion work.

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## chuasam (Jun 28, 2015)

FKP007 said:


> Image Stabilisation on the lens is excellent and helps when hitting those slower shutter speeds. 70-200 2.8 is my fav lens which I use for 90% of my beauty portrait and fashion work.
> 
> Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk


I used my 70-200 f/2.8 until I discovered how much lighter a 85mm f/1.8 is.
For short premium shoots, I still use my 70-200 but when I'm doing a full day of shooting, the 85mm doesn't leave my muscles twitching.


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## Bebulamar (Jun 28, 2015)

Unless you hate depth of field and want none of it the f/4 lens should be just fine. I have used a 24-85mm lens non VR for low light shot (no flash) with aperture never larger than f/5.6.


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## dennybeall (Jun 28, 2015)

IMHO if you want to not use the strobe so much then get something faster than f4. Years ago as a wedding photographer my goto lens was the Nikon 85mm 1.8 and it was also my portrait lens. (Still have it in the relics closet......)


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## FKP007 (Jun 28, 2015)

chuasam said:


> FKP007 said:
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> > Image Stabilisation on the lens is excellent and helps when hitting those slower shutter speeds. 70-200 2.8 is my fav lens which I use for 90% of my beauty portrait and fashion work.
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Yeah it is a heavy old beast but I find I can just sit back and smash off a tight head shot 3/4 and full body without moving an inch. Love my 85 1.8 too and find it equally as sharp at 1.8 as the 85 1.2

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## table1349 (Jun 28, 2015)

Don t Zoom Move Treating Your Zoom Lens as a Series of Primes


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## FKP007 (Jun 28, 2015)

Defeats the object of having the freedom of a lens like the 70-200. Once you hit 80 mm distortion is pretty much non existent anyway. I love the dof at 135 and even more at 200.




gryphonslair99 said:


> Don t Zoom Move Treating Your Zoom Lens as a Series of Primes


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## table1349 (Jun 28, 2015)

FKP007 said:


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Defeats the object of producing the best possible product for the client.   I choose quality over comfort.


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## FKP007 (Jun 28, 2015)

gryphonslair99 said:


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And your telling me that the client is going to notice a drop in quality between shooting at 80 mm or 135mm on an L series lens at f8 like the 70-200. Seriously?

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## FKP007 (Jun 28, 2015)

FKP007 said:


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You must be talking about pixel level differences if there are any at that. I've never heard of anyone question the quality of such a lens at different focal lengths, it's dof that people generally discuss. If your client would be scrutinising your images for quality at that level then they wouldn't be hiring anyone shooting a dslr, it would be someone wanting medium format quality and nothing less.

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## table1349 (Jun 28, 2015)

FKP007 said:


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FKP007 said:


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## FKP007 (Jun 28, 2015)

gryphonslair99 said:


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## bratkinson (Jun 28, 2015)

karlish said:


> I am into portrait and party shots and also small events shot in churches. Although I use a flashgun most of the time, I wanted a lens that will capture enough light for sharp images without the need to use the flash.



The 24-70 f2.8L (i or ii) vs 24-105 f4L opinion battle has been waged on this forum several times in the past year or so.  Most recently in the Canon Lenses forum.  24-70 or 24-105 Photography Forum

As I stated in that thread and various other times, I once owned both lenses and sold the 24-70 mark i.  For me, the lighter weight of the 24-105 and IS outweighs the only-a-pixel-peeper-would-care the IQ advantage if the 24-70.  I've never had a complaint from those I photograph about the IQ from the 24-105.  And to me, the added zoom range of the 24-105 is worth its weight in gold.  In short, the 24-105 is on my 5Diii perhaps 80% of the time or more.

Like you, I have found that much of my photography is at small church events (I turned down a wedding request just 3 days ago!).  Additionally, I try to shoot with no flash as much as possible.  But when I need an 'insurance' shot or two, I turn on the flash and get those shots.  As the most of the photos in my gallery will attest, the majority of them were taken in quite low light, no flash, mostly with the 5Diii + 24-105...and handheld as well. 
bratkinson - Photos Photography Forum
The first shot, with the toddler, was with my 135 f2L.  The train shots near the end were taken with my G15, and the low light shots after those with the 24-105 on a 60D when I owned that camera.  In particular, the shots with only candle light were taken with the 24-105 at f4, 1/160th, ISO 25,600...handheld.  From what I've read, the 6D has a slight high ISO advantage over the 5Diii.

In short, there's nothing 'wrong' with the 24-105.  And for me, the extra 35mm of zoom 'reach' comes in handy more often than not while shooting church events.

Edit: Also, you can't go wrong with the Canon 85 f1.8 for portrait work.  Except for the easily corrected CA (in Lightroom), the f1.8 is an all around great lens.


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## table1349 (Jun 28, 2015)

FKP007 said:


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Nice selfie, and you didn't even have to move to take it.


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## chuasam (Jun 28, 2015)

FKP007 said:


> Defeats the object of producing the best possible product for the client.   I choose quality over comfort.
> And your telling me that the client is going to notice a drop in quality between shooting at 80 mm or 135mm on an L series lens at f8 like the 70-200. Seriously?


Oh if there's a drop in quality between an 85mm and a 70-200mm that your client nitpicks about...you really have the wrong client *LOL* you have a pixel peeper.
My comfort is paramount. If my muscles start shaking after 4 hours of shooting, it's game over. So comfort is paramount.


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## FKP007 (Jun 28, 2015)

gryphonslair99 said:


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It's not my selfie friend more likely something you would take lol 



It is in fact an image representing photographers like yourself who believe that equipment needs to utilised a specific way, their way, the right way, and any alternative suggestion is greeted with a youtube video to justify their point followed up with some statement about quality (not to mention when they having nothing more to say they resort to silly gifs). We all know those types of douche bag photographers who spend their weekends pixel peeping, looking for lens distortion and analysing edge to edge sharpness and truly believe that a quality outcome is dependent on those things alone. But the funny thing is, it's those types of "pros" who actually produce work that can be described as, quite simply, mediocre.

Anyway keep going mate, I'm bored of this thread.





 just a little.


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## jaomul (Jun 29, 2015)

Ha, this thread may have went a bit skewered.

I don't really think anyone will really disagree that at some level expensive faster primes may outperform an expensive zoom in absolute terms (whether this performance is actually visible on a normal photograph is debatable, and as we can see, many are happy to debate very strongly  ), but its derailed from the OP original question about an f4 zoom being good enough for portraits.

Not everyone can afford exotic lenses. There are suggestions for f2.8 zooms above. This is ok if such advise was requested, but I am fairly sure the OP would have asked about f2.8 lenses if they were in budget. A lot more helpful advise would be to give OP pros and cons of the question asked. It's good to remember not everyone is a pro


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## Solarflare (Jun 29, 2015)

Well, about the original thread question - I'm pretty happy with the portraits I get of my Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f4 VR, and I was pretty okay with what I got out of my D5100 with AF-S 55-200mm f4-5.6 VR before.

However, I know that many professional portrait shooters will with good reason swear on glas like the Zeiss APO Sonnar T* 2.0/135mm or Zeiss Otus APO Planar T* 1.4/85mm. I'm just not that specialized.


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## chuasam (Jun 29, 2015)

Solarflare said:


> However, I know that many professional portrait shooters will with good reason swear on glas like the Zeiss APO Sonnar T* 2.0/135mm or Zeiss Otus APO Planar T* 1.4/85mm. I'm just not that specialized.


We call them Measurebators


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## FKP007 (Jun 29, 2015)

jaomul said:


> Ha, this thread may have went a bit skewered.
> 
> I don't really think anyone will really disagree that at some level expensive faster primes may outperform an expensive zoom in absolute terms (whether this performance is actually visible on a normal photograph is debatable, and as we can see, many are happy to debate very strongly  ), but its derailed from the OP original question about an f4 zoom being good enough for portraits.
> 
> Not everyone can afford exotic lenses. There are suggestions for f2.8 zooms above. This is ok if such advise was requested, but I am fairly sure the OP would have asked about f2.8 lenses if they were in budget. A lot more helpful advise would be to give OP pros and cons of the question asked. It's good to remember not everyone is a pro


Totally agree which is why I still say the 24-105 is a brilliant kit lens all rounder. I  got mine with my 5d mk2 when it was first released and used that lens for 5 years shooting weddings. It was permanently on and did a great job. I only moved to the 24-70 2.8 for the aesthetic and lower light reasons but still utilised the 24-105 for my own personal travel stuff and is my go to lens when shooting dslr video. The focal length range is so versatile for video work.

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## Dao (Jun 29, 2015)

Personally, I do like the way the photo looks with the longer focal length.  For outdoor portrait type photos, I like the result of the 200mm from my telephoto zoom lens than my 85mm prime.

As for 24-105mm lens, that is a great lens to have.   If I sell all my gears and start from the beginning, I will get a full frame body with a lens in that range as the standard zoom lens/walk around.


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## chuasam (Jun 29, 2015)

My gf has a 300mm f/2.8 lens.
That thing is pretty darn sharp but it is a completely pain in the ass to shoot a portrait.


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## Solarflare (Jun 30, 2015)

chuasam said:


> My gf has a 300mm f/2.8 lens.
> That thing is pretty darn sharp but it is a completely pain in the ass to shoot a portrait.


???

How so ?!?

A 300mm f2.8 or 400mm f2.8 is what a fashion photographer would typically use extensively, or so I've been told.


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## Braineack (Jun 30, 2015)

chuasam said:


> Oh if there's a drop in quality between an 85mm and a 70-200mm that your client nitpicks about...you really have the wrong client *LOL* you have a pixel peeper.



Your client is not seeing an IQ difference between these two in a studio settings.


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## Bryston3bsst (Jun 30, 2015)

Braineack said:


> chuasam said:
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........in _any _setting.


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## chuasam (Jun 30, 2015)

Bryston3bsst said:


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Unless your client happens to make calibration charts or happens to be DxO.


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## karlish (Jul 2, 2015)

bratkinson said:


> karlish said:
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> > I am into portrait and party shots and also small events shot in churches. Although I use a flashgun most of the time, I wanted a lens that will capture enough light for sharp images without the need to use the flash.
> ...




Thanks a lot! Very convincing


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## karlish (Jul 2, 2015)

Bryston3bsst said:


> jaomul said:
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> > I don't really think anyone will really disagree that at some level expensive faster primes may outperform an expensive zoom in absolute terms (*whether this performance is actually visible on a normal photograph is debatable, and as we can see, many are happy to debate very strongly  ), but its derailed from the OP original question about an f4 zoom being good enough for portraits.*
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Thanks!! In fact I was thinking...."What happened here, on my very first thread?  Did I cause this fierce battle?  Thanks to all though...I am now more convinced to opt for the f4 24-105.


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## iolair (Jul 12, 2015)

Solarflare said:


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There's an advantage to being close enough to easily communicate with your model. While certain jobs might benefit a 300mm, having to bellow directions to the model won't help achieve working rapport.


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## beagle100 (Jul 15, 2015)

karlish said:


> Hi All,
> First post from my side.. let's see
> 
> I am thinking of buying a full frame camera soon and I am looking for a good lens to start of with. A general purpose lens would suit my needs. I currently have a Canon 450D with a 18-55 + 55-250 + a 50mm 1.8 lenses + a flashgun.
> ...



I'll also vote for larger apertures if you're not using a flash (85mm 1.8, 70-200 2.8, etc.)


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