Shooting portraits with the Sony 85mm and 50mm lenses

I love to shoot portraits. I think a lot of people do. My favorite lens for portraits is the 135mm length. It gives you a great working distance between the subject and the camera, gives a wonderful falloff to the background and is usually smaller, lighter and better optically than the zoom lenses.

Sony has a couple great lens out for those who like to shoot portraits. These images were from a lighting display at the recent Henry's Digital Imaging and Video Show in Toronto.

They were shot on the A55 camera and existing light.

The first one was done with the DT 50mm f1.8 shot wide open. I think it's a great result for a lens costing $179. I think Sony calls them "Easy Buy" lenses... I can see why at that price.

This next lens was also one of the "Easy Buys". It's the 85mm F2.8 SAM lens. This sells for $299 and produces great images. This length is made for portraits and this 85 works with both the APS sized sensors and the full frames A900. This shot is wide open at F2.8.
This final shot is done on the A55 with the Zeiss 85mm f1.4 lens. This is one of the all time great lenses on the market. Right now it's selling at $1549 which is competitive with the other top lenses.... but lets be honest... it's a lot of money for a lens. I don't own the Zeiss 85mm myself but this wide open shot shows the great bokeh that people love. Bokeh is the look of the out of focus areas on the photo. For some people it's more important than the sharp part of the picture. Anyway you can see that this is also made for portraits. It works on the APS size sensor giving you a 127mm lens, very close to my all time favorite lens for portraits the 135mm. This lens also works on the A900 full frame camera and produces outstanding quality and tone with the A900 24 mega pixel sensor.
Rob Skeoch