A Matter Of Perspective
Which lens should you use when doing self portraits? Here I ramble on about focal lengths and how they play their part in self portraiture,
As a rule, the best portrait lens is a fast 50mm prime lens. Though please note, this rule was around in the days of 35mm film, so todays equivalent for most digital camera's would be around 35mm.
So, in this article i will refer to focal lengths in the newer and widely used 1.5 crop sensor format, for convenients sake.
So why does the 35mm focal length work so well? Basically it is the same perspective our eyes perceive, which is considered "natural" for obvious reasons.
A 35mm lens is great for either full length portraits, or close up head shots, and only requie a few feet to a few meters working distance, which is ideal for keeping an eye on your images as you go along.
However, using a vintage 50mm prime lens offers an 85mm equivalent focal length, making them extremely flattering for portraits. It isolates the subject enough from the background offering gorgeous depth of field and lovely bokeh.
A 90mm lens gives similar results to an old 50mm prime lens, and are also recommended.
But any lens above that will make self portraits difficult due to the distance required for them to work, you will have to be pretty far away to be in the frame, specially a 200mm, or 230mm, you can trigger the shutter with a good wireless release, but you will be very far from your camera, always risky when outside.
Using a wider focal length such as 16mm or 18mm, shows a much wider scene than a 35mm would, so these are ideal for environmental portraits that show off as much of your surroundings as possible.
The wide angle is not very flattering for close up's however, as lenses tend to distort features around the edge of the frame on wide angle lenses.
But for including much of your surroundings this focal length is perfect, and it is one I use a lot for my self portraits when I am in the right location, they capture so much detail and really help to convey a sense of where you are.
Prime lenses are generally best, but zoom lenses are also great for self portraits, I use my 16-50mm kit lens a heck of a lot! It coveres all the popular focal lengths for portraits obviously, but it is not the fastest lens in the world, only stopping down to F/5.6 at the 50mm end, but it is acceptable.
Experiment yourself and discover how these focal lengths vary from one another, don't take my word for it!
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