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Comparison: 50mm vs 85mm Lenses on a Full Frame Camera for Portraits

Chris Gampat
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09/07/2015
1 Min read

Last Updated on 09/07/2015 by Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Canon 50mm f1.8 STM lens review product images (1 of 2)ISO 4001-125 sec at f - 2.8

We’ve answered this question many times when it comes to technicalities, but there is so much more to photography than just being technical.

The folks over at Weekly Imogen recently published a video doing just that. They compare the Canon 50mm f1.8 and the Canon 85mm f1.8–both are great lenses. Their technical problems aside, there are lots of reasons why you’d use the 85mm lens over a 50mm lens when ti comes to using a full frame camera. 85mm lenses render less distortion, compress bulging parts and tend to throw a lot of the scene out of focus. That means that when you’re photographing a subject, you can make the scene really just focus on them.

Their video is after the jump, but if you’re interested in more then check out our comparison featuring the 50mm f1.4 vs the 85mm f1.8, Weekly Imogen’s own debate on the two, and our field test comparison of the Sigma versions of the 50mm vs 85mm lenses.

50mm 85mm camera canon comparison f1.8 full-frame imogen lenses sigms Weekly
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.