Matt Pratt shared a link today to an episode of The Grid on Kelby TV, advising us all to “never shoot a woman at 50mm” (you’ll find the discussion around 13 minutes into the video—thanks, Matt). It struck my curiosity. When new photographers ask me what they should buy first, I often tell them to start out with an inexpensive 50mm lens, simply because that’s what I was advised to start out with when I took my very first class at the Chicago Photography Center.
Thinking back, my first classes were much more focused on objects than people, so the lens made sense for what we were doing. As it turns out, when people ask me what lens to start with, it’s important to know what they’re hoping to shoot with that lens.
As an experiment, I set up my D700 on a tripod with my SB-900 Speedlight and an umbrella off to camera left. I shot all of the photos above with the single light in the same place. I used a remote, and I kept my settings unchanged at 1/125 second, f/6.3 and ISO 400. These are all straight out of the camera with no work in Photoshop, except to organize them all together here.
As you can see, the lens distortion really starts to stretch out my face at about 60mm. It accentuates all of my worst features (it makes my face look long and my forehead look huge). So for the naysayers who think 50mm is just as good as any other length (I’ll admit I would have thought the same before my little experiment), I encourage you to think again.
