Which lens?

September 6th, 2014
I am going to be doing a senior portrait session next weekend and I was wondering which lens you all would use. I have a Nikon 3200 and a 55 -200mm lens and an 18 - 55.
September 6th, 2014
@cbell i would use the 55-200mm set at about 60mm giving you an effective focal of 90mm - a classic portrait length,
September 7th, 2014
You can use any focal length to make a compelling portrait. That being said longer focal lengths such as 85mm and up are typically considered more flattering to your subject, do to the way longer focal length lenses compress the image. In my opinion 60mm is not long enough for a classic head shot but fine for 3/4 body or full body shots. While what Richard said was true @vignouse that 90mm is in the classic portrait lens category the main reason for this is the image compression caused by a 90mm lens and the crop factor of APSc sensors only effects the field of view not the magnification.
With the lenses you have you will have to pay more attention to the background in your images as the aperture isn't very fast so you will not get as good of subject/background separation caused by wider apertures. This isn't a problem just make sure you pay attention to the background. You don't want a tree coming out of your subjects head in the final image.
September 7th, 2014
Either lens will do, it just depends where and how you want to shoot. If you want to be "in the face" of the subject, much like fashion and beauty photographers directing and shooting fashion models, a 50-60mm "full frame equivalent" lens works for many pros, a high quality 50mm prime (like the f/1.4) being the lens of choice often. You would shoot with a 35-40 setting on your kit lens, but you will want to be 3-4 feet at most from the face, and that's too "in the face" for me, especially with "non professional" subjects. For more formal, posed (stationary) portraits, non professional models for instance, a longer lens, classically 85mm full frame equivalent (about 55 on your D3200), but I like even longer, especially if you are going for the "head and shoulder" style. The Nikon f/2.8 105mm micro (macro) is a much prized lens by professional studio photographers. Here's one shot at 135mm on my D7100 (200 ffe) in perfect light.



And here's another shot at 200mm (300 ffe) even, with less than perfect light, but not too bad. I was, of course, quite a distance back and "sharing" the model with other shooters, but it turned out quite nicely I thnk.



So bring both, and shoot with both and shoot a lot, experiment with different zoom lengths, or as many as your subjects can stand. Find out what works for you and how you find it comfortable shooting, close, medium or back some ways. Like Jake said above, @soren, all can be made to work. But you will shoot differently in each case. There is no fixed formula.

Good luck!

September 10th, 2014
@vignouse @soren @frankhymus thank you all so much for your time and comments. I am going to take them all into consideration. Thanks again.
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