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The Secret To Better Portraits With Longer Lenses

Chris Gampat
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11/13/2023
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Tamron 70-180mm f2.8 G2 product images 21-60s400

It’s undeniable that in the past decade, wider-angle lenses have become a favorite of many photographers for portraits. But as those lenses have technologically become better, so too have the longer lenses. And let’s be real here — photographers love beautiful bokeh provided by fast, longer lenses. Mixed in with the actual great subject matter, better portraits can be had by shooting wide open to get the maximum bokeh and to separate the subject from the background. 

This piece is presented in partnership with TAMRON. We’ve independently and ethically reviewed all the products in this post already without sponsorship. And we worked with them to recommend a few key gems to you.

Over the years, we’ve used various lenses from different brands. Consistently, Tamron ends up being one of our favorite lens companies for a slew of reasons. First off, they all offer weather resistance — which means that your camera’s sensor will keep clean when you practice good habits. Second, the autofocus on the lenses simply works across all the camera brands they support. This is especially the case with Sony, as they are a large stakeholder of  Tamron. Lastly, their lenses combine good color with a level of sharpness that doesn’t need to be improved on.

With lenses that offer longer focal lengths, photographers get all the sharpness benefits, color benefits, autofocus benefits, and the weather-resistance. More importantly, they get bokeh that’s unlike anything they’ve seen before. Tamron’s bokeh is often nicer than being buttery smooth — it’s like frosting on top of a wedding cake.

So how do photographers make the most of that bokeh for better portraits? Well, here’s an essential checklist:

  • Shoot your portrait wide open. Tamron’s image quality will balance sharpness with great colors and contrast, and that means you’ve got far less post-production to do.
  • With the Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 G2: shoot at 75mm and f2.8. Using the Sony system, try to meter the scene for your subject’s skin and then underexpose the scene by around 1/3rd to 2/3rds of a stop.
  • With the Tamron 70-180mm f2.8 G2: You can really shoot at any focal length and get a fantastic image.
  • Using the Tamron 35-150mm f2-2.8: It’s truly difficult to shoot a photo that you won’t like. But on the longer end, you’ll get some extra “pop” to your images. If you’re shooting with a camera like the Nikon z9, then you can rely on the light metering to do all the work. On a camera like the Sony a7r V, however, we strongly recommend overexposing the scene by a little bit according to the person’s skin tones. This lens tends to be a bit extra contrasty, so it can soften the photo a bit more.
  • Use soft, frontal lighting with softboxes because they make all shadows on the subject a whole lot softer. It’s basically like adding a face filter on your favorite app, but with a lot of integrity.
  • If your subject is backlit, have the light come in from above the subject and have the light source just out of frame. Sometimes, this adds in a bit of lens flare that makes the photo that much more dynamic. It also ends up encompassing your subject from behind to add more separation between them and the background. Combined with Tamron’s bokeh, you’ll make better portraits by making your subject easily stand out.

The following photographs were shot with the three lenses mentioned.

better portraits Bokeh tamron Tamron 28-75mm tamron 35-150mm Tamron 70-180mm
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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.