Reader's Comments - Index of - Free

Portrait Photography
Regards
Rich Jacobs
-- Rich Jacobs, February 11, 1998
I sometimes use a Yashica-Mat 124G with the normal 80mm lens. Properly used, it can give superb results. The
challenge for portraits is that the lens perspective is too close. And you're on your own for filters if you want a
warm or soft effect. So, get creative, back up and crop the big square negative later. And speaking of film,
because of the higher cost, you'll be enticed to slow down and shoot more efficiently.
-- Albert E. Anderson, March 22, 1998
Great article.
I have a couple of points though. You mentioned in the article about film selection: "If you're doing color, you'll
want subtle tones, low color saturation, and low-ish contrast. My favorite films are Fuji Astia, Kodak 100SW".
Those choices of films kind of contradicts your statement though. Astia is considered by many to be almost
"Velvia Light". Great color saturation but acurate skin tones. And of course, Kodak 100SW has high saturation
too. That's what the "S" in SW means...the W means toward the warm tones.
Fuji NPS is a great one though for low contrast/ saturation...which is why it's such a great wedding film.
-- Scott Gant, June 28, 1998
Scott's right of course about the ISO 100 slide films being pretty saturated. Still, that's sort of all that you can get
these days in slide film.
-- Philip Greenspun, June 28, 1998
On the subject of using fast primes for portraiture, I'd like to offer a lens that is: Inexpensive,Sharp, and handy to
use. That is the Nikon 100mm/2.8 E (AIS) lens that has been around for years. This lens is available (used) in the
neighborhood of about $100 or so. Several lens raters have noted that this is a good lens for optical quality, but
seem to downcheck it somewhat for mechanical quality because of the plastic build. That's not a problem for
studio work though, and for the field -- just don't use it to pound nails. Any comments by others?
Bill Briggs - unklbil@csonline.net
-- Bill Briggs, February 24, 1999
As a professional photographer specialising on location fashion and potrait shoots, I can vouch for the countless
times an 80-200 f2.8 has saved me from many a tight corner. Shiv Saran
http://www.photo.net/portraits/intro (11 of 37)7/3/2005 2:16:41 AM