8x10 and focal lenght for portraiture

[Accordionist]

Hello, as I have read and as i have seen on photographs, there is maybe no need for an telephoto lens for 8x10 portraiture work. Is that true? And if yes, WHY? As I have tried with another smaller formats at close distances, there is always a need of using a mid telephoto at minimum for good otput. (6x7, 4x5) Why is it in 8x10 different?

[David de Gruyl]

Well, you don't have problems getting small depth of field with just about any moderate wide to normal lens in 8x10. (for example, the depth of field of a 240mm lens at f/5.6 is only a couple of inches).

On the other hand, you do still have to put the camera close to the subject to fill the film.

Why do you need a telephoto lens for smaller formats? Once you've answered that question, I think we can tell you if you need a long lens or not. Personally, I use the 240mm, but would love a 360 to 450mm lens.

[Accordionist]

Why? Due the perpective. When i try to take a close up portratit photograph with 6x7 and 110mm normal lens, the face will look very ugly. But when I use 180mm mid telephoto lens, everithing looks fine. When i have tried this with 4x5 this efect was still there. (but a little bit less - maybe due the symetric construction) I have just found on photo.net this sentence: One of the strange things about 8x10 is that you don't need your portrait lens to be twice the length of normal if what you're want are to avoid bulbuous noses and have a pleasantly blurry background. And how can you "avoid bulbuous noses" without changing the perpective? Is that because in 8x10 is that actually 1:1?

[David de Gruyl]

Clearly, you have more a problem with this than I do. While the effect is reduced on 8x10, it is still there. The 240mm lens works fine for taking pictures of people, but not so close that the face fills the frame. I am usually far enough back that the upper half of the body is visible (in portrait layout).

If your intention is to flatten the face, I would recommend using a longer lens. Something in the 450-600mm range.

Of course, this was why I asked what the problem was.

[rdenney]

If you are sure of what you want for camera position (and therefore perspective), then all formats work the same. The difference you have read about stems from the different way many photographers see the image when using larger formats.

There are also several practical issues. It takes a 24" lens to give you the same effect as a 180 on 6x7, and those aren't particularly abundant. And not every camera has sufficient draw for a 24" lens focused at 1:2, the magnification of a tight facial portrait on 8x10. That requires around 36" of bellows draw. And then there is depth of field. At the apertures you need for even a little depth of field, you'll need lots of light to allow a short enough shutter speed to be tolerable to the sitter.

Rick "thinking long telephotos are the domain of smaller formats" Denney

[ic-racer]

Perspective on the face (or any subject) is related to subject distance only. So, how far from you subject do you need to be to get your favorite relationship of nose to the rest of the face?? Just put your 8x10 camera at the same subject distance; then select a lens that gives you the angle of view you want.

Obviously as you focus in close the angle of view changes (thats why the usual conversion factors between formats are just an estimate if you are not at infinity). But this has nothing to do with perspective on the face.

Also, most 8x10 cameras have bellows long enough to focus a non-telephoto lens in the 'portriat' length range. Which is good because I know that none of the Fuji Teles cover 8x10 at infinity.

[Paul Fitzgerald]

"there is maybe no need for an telephoto lens for 8x10 portraiture work. Is that true? And if yes, WHY?"

It is true, because : they make normal lenses in long focal lengths AND most tele-photo lenses for 8x10 are for aero work at inf.

It is subject-to-lens distance that changed perspective so place the camera and select the lens you like. For head shots 500mm/20in works well but you need the bellows for it. 600mm/24in starts to flatten the features but can be useful.

Have fun with the hunt.

[John O'Connell]

I don't know if you want to do waist-up portraiture or headshots. Waist-up you don't need a telephoto for in 8x10; headshots you might.

I've done full-face work with a 210mm and a 355mm in 8x10, and the perspective distortion problem exists, just as it does in smaller formats. That said, 8x10 work is so static that you can take the time to compose something with a normal lens that minimizes the distortion.

If you really want a portrait lens in 8x10 to do headshots, there are a couple of 600mm telephotos that would give you the right reproduction ratio at 28" to 36" inches of extension.

[aduncanson]

Is that because in 8x10 is that actually 1:1?

To a degree, yes. ic-racer gave the key point "how far from your subject do you need to be to get your favorite relationship of nose to the rest of the face?". If you prefer an 85mm lens with a 35mm camera then your preferred subject distance for a head & shoulders portrait would be approximately 1.5m. I calculate that you will be able to frame the same subject from 1.5m with an 480mm lens on an 8x10 camera.

Obviously with larger formats you use longer lenses. 1.5m is long compared to an 85mm lens so the lens extends very little when you focus at that distance. 1.5m is not long compared to the 480mm lens and so the bellows must extend significantly from its infinity position to focus there. So at this distance a 480mm lens (2.5X the negative width) does for 8x10, what a 85mm lens (3.5X the negative width) does for 35mm.

Note also that you seem to be using the term "telephoto" to mean any long lens, while most LF photographers reserve the term for its technical meaning, i.e., a lens designed to be substantially shorter from flange to film than its focal length. This appears to be causing some confusion.

[Jay DeFehr]

Hello Accordionist,

When I moved up to LF I shared your concerns about Focal Lengths for portraits. I was familiar with the recommendation that a portrait lens should be 2X the FL of a normal lens for a given format, and then learned of another that suggested the sum of two sides of the format should equal the FL of a portrait lens, for example, 4" + 5" = 9" FL for 4x5 portraits, 8" + 10" = 18" FL for 8x10 portraits, etc. This second rule seems more reasonable than the first, and I've come to appreciate even shorter lenses for portraits, even in smaller formats. Shorter lenses give a rounder look I find more natural and 3 dimensional, but this is a matter of taste, and I tend to include more in the frame with shorter lenses, keeping my lens to subject distance more or less similar whatever FL I'm using. I paid dearly to have a 17-1/2" Kodak Ektar mounted in a Copal shutter believing in the rule I noted above, and I find I use that lens very rarely, preferring the looks I get from my 12" Turner Reich, and my 14-1/2" Verito lenses. I have since added a 16" Turner Reich, but haven't used it much, yet. Keep an open mind, and experiment. Above all, enjoy yourself!

[engl]

You might want to be careful with the terms, a telephoto lens is one with the optical centre outside the physical construction. The construction is common with lenses with a small field of view, such as a Nikon/Canon 300mm lens built for the 135 format. Large format lenses are built in tele and non-tele constructions, a 360mm tele lens will give the exact same image as a 360mm non-tele, but the tele lens would require less bellows.

My Olympus XA (135 format compact camera) has an excellent Zuiko 35/2.8 lens. The field of view is wide but it is a telephoto lens, to keep the size down.

Apart from that, Ill repeat what ic-racer said, the perspective (relative size of facial features, in this example) depends *only* on distance to subject. If you think 2x the format diagonal (a 85mm lens on 135 format, 170mm on 6x7) is ideal for portraits, you would want a 2x format diagonal on 8x10 as well (around 650mm). Standing at the same distance, your subject will fill the frame in the same way and the perspective would be the same.

Of course, if perspective doesnt matter and you only want the shallow depth of field, you can get that using wide lenses on a 8x10. You also get movements.

[aduncanson]

If you think 2x the format diagonal (a 85mm lens on 135 format, 170mm on 6x7) is ideal for portraits, you would want a 2x format diagonal on 8x10 as well (around 650mm). Standing at the same distance, your subject will fill the frame in the same way and the perspective would be the same.

Not so.

When making a head and shoulders portrait on a 135 format camera one maps an object approximately 400mm wide, the shoulders, onto the 24mm width of the 135 frame establishing a magnification, M, of 0.06. Using an 85mm lens, you will achieve this at a subject distance, So, of 1502mm according to the formula
So = F x (M + 1) / M.

When replicating this head and shoulders portrait with an 8x10 camera you map the same 400mm wide shoulders to the 190mm width of the film. The magnification is 0.475. For identical perspective the subject distance must remain unchanged at 1502mm. The formula above transforms to F = So x M / (M + 1). Plugging in the magnification and subject distance yields a focal length of 483mm.

If you used the 650mm lens suggested by engl, the resulting subject distance would be 2018mm giving a somewhat more distant perspective equivalent to approximately 114mm on the 135 format. This explains why, while 85mm lenses are common for 135, 650mm portrait lenses are unheard of for 8x10.

The departure from proportionality arises because in portraiture the subject distances approach the focal length of the lenses for large formats requiring disproportionate extensions from the infinity focus position. The math remains the same no matter the size of the subject, magnification or preferred 135 focal length although the disproportionality is greater for shorter subject distances and longer 135 equivalent focal lengths.

In reality large format portraitists commonly use even shorter lenses than 480mm, perhaps because they are more flexible, allowing for less tight portraits including double portraits without an excessively large studio and because the large format negative will allow significant cropping if enlarging.

[jb7]

Not so.

When making a head and shoulders portrait on a 135 format camera one maps an object approximately 400mm wide, the shoulders, onto the 24mm width of the 135 frame establishing a magnification, M, of 0.06. Using an 85mm lens, you will achieve this at a subject distance, So, of 1502mm according to the formula
So = F x (M + 1) / M.

When replicating this head and shoulders portrait with an 8x10 camera you map the same 400mm wide shoulders to the 190mm width of the film. The magnification is 0.475. For identical perspective the subject distance must remain unchanged at 1502mm. The formula above transforms to F = So x M / (M + 1). Plugging in the magnification and subject distance yields a focal length of 483mm.

If you used the 650mm lens suggested by engl, the resulting subject distance would be 2018mm giving a somewhat more distant perspective equivalent to approximately 114mm on the 135 format. This explains why, while 85mm lenses are common for 135, 650mm portrait lenses are unheard of for 8x10.

The departure from proportionality arises because in portraiture the subject distances approach the focal length of the lenses for large formats requiring disproportionate extensions from the infinity focus position. The math remains the same no matter the size of the subject, magnification or preferred 135 focal length although the disproportionality is greater for shorter subject distances and longer 135 equivalent focal lengths.

In reality large format portraitists commonly use even shorter lenses than 480mm, perhaps because they are more flexible, allowing for less tight portraits including double portraits without an excessively large studio and because the large format negative will allow significant cropping if enlarging.



yes-

Another way to look at it is-

Providing you are not using a telephoto lens,
set up your shot so that you're pleased with the perspective, the distance, and the proportions of the features of your subject-
Now, disregarding the engraved focal length,
measure from the lens board to the film-

It will be longer than the engraved focal length, for the reasons given above-
magnification- and you can use that to compare to your 35mm lenses, where magnification is negligible.

Focal lengths are for infinity, and 1:1. Everything else is a sliding scale...

[Daniel_Buck]

I find 300-360mm just fine :)

[engl]

Im sorry, yes you are right. The point I was trying to make was that only distance affects the proportions, and for the same shots on two formats you will want two lenses with the same field of view, which I simplified as being dependent on format diagonal and focal length. As you have shown that simplification was flawed.


Not so.

When making a head and shoulders portrait on a 135 format camera one maps an object approximately 400mm wide, the shoulders, onto the 24mm width of the 135 frame establishing a magnification, M, of 0.06. Using an 85mm lens, you will achieve this at a subject distance, So, of 1502mm according to the formula
So = F x (M + 1) / M.

When replicating this head and shoulders portrait with an 8x10 camera you map the same 400mm wide shoulders to the 190mm width of the film. The magnification is 0.475. For identical perspective the subject distance must remain unchanged at 1502mm. The formula above transforms to F = So x M / (M + 1). Plugging in the magnification and subject distance yields a focal length of 483mm.

If you used the 650mm lens suggested by engl, the resulting subject distance would be 2018mm giving a somewhat more distant perspective equivalent to approximately 114mm on the 135 format. This explains why, while 85mm lenses are common for 135, 650mm portrait lenses are unheard of for 8x10.

The departure from proportionality arises because in portraiture the subject distances approach the focal length of the lenses for large formats requiring disproportionate extensions from the infinity focus position. The math remains the same no matter the size of the subject, magnification or preferred 135 focal length although the disproportionality is greater for shorter subject distances and longer 135 equivalent focal lengths.

In reality large format portraitists commonly use even shorter lenses than 480mm, perhaps because they are more flexible, allowing for less tight portraits including double portraits without an excessively large studio and because the large format negative will allow significant cropping if enlarging.

[Frank Petronio]

A 14" Ektar (360mm) has made a lot of famous portraits.

I think the longer focal lengths happened more because they were sold down our throats by the 35mm manufacturers -- using a 70-200 zoom on 35mm and shooting somebody's head from 20 feet away and blowing out the background is pretty darn easy compared to actually engaging and thinking about the relationship to the background you want your subject to have.

Going long is cheating ;-)

A lot of my stuff has been made with 35 to 65mm equivalent lenses in large format, including headshots, and even in 35mm I tend to favor 50mm normals. So I've been doing it wrong all this time?

[Scott Davis]

Another vote for the 14" Commercial Ektar as a portrait lens on 8x10. It even works well as a portrait/normal lens for 11x14. Once you get bigger than 8x10, the standard rule goes out the window regarding focal length because you really are approaching or even surpassing 1:1 reproduction ratio for your portrait, so a normal lens becomes effectively much longer.

[Jay DeFehr]

How about some examples? We photographers are supposed to be visual learners. You guys are way too sharp on this stuff, so I'll challenge you to identify the format and FL used for my attached, un-cropped image. I personally don't think it can be done, based on a jpeg, but I might be surprised!

[Ron Marshall]

OK, I'll play.

My guess is a 14" (355) on 8x10.

[Jay DeFehr]

Ron, you're a good sport, but this isn't really a fair quiz. As I said, I don't think it's really possible to determine these things from a small jpeg, and it might be more difficult than some are willing to admit, even when viewing real prints.

[Ron Marshall]

Ron, you're a good sport, but this isn't really a fair quiz. As I said, I don't think it's really possible to determine these things from a small jpeg, and it might be more difficult than some are willing to admit, even when viewing real prints.

I agree; but just for fun, what format and lens were used?

[Jay DeFehr]

Ron,

The film is TMY, the format is 35mm, the lens used was a 58mm f1.2. I think if you do the math, you'll find your guess was pretty close, relatively speaking.

[Ron Marshall]

Ron,

The film is TMY, the format is 35mm, the lens used was a 58mm f1.2. I think if you do the math, you'll find your guess was pretty close, relatively speaking.

The short depth of field led me to the 8x10, but of course f1.2 or thereabouts will also skin that cat.

Nice shot, by the way.

[Ben Syverson]

Indeed, great shot...

On the advice of Christopher Broadbent, I chose a 300mm for 8x10 portraiture. On 4x5 I use 127mm. He's right that a relatively short focal length creates a closer, more intimate feel -- you're as close to the subject as you'd be in conversation. In contrast, a long lens flattens the subject and can feel distant. To me, long lenses (2X normal and above) make the ears look too big, and square off the face in an unflattering way.

Short lenses have other advantages... When I started shooting 8x10 portraits, I thought I was so clever: I positioned the lens at eye level, and used front fall to reduce headspace until the composition looked good. What resulted was a portrait that was as straight and "correct" as an architectural photograph, but felt wrong. Since then I've started tilting the entire camera down, as you would with 35mm, and it has the effect of slimming the body and face, and emphasizing the eyes. That effect is more pronounced with shorter focal lengths.

[Accordionist]

Thank you guys, i have never expected so fast and relevant answers. :) And when are you posting photographs, could anyone post a photograph of closeup portrait made with
18"+ lens? Just as an example. (because everywhere are only photographs with shorter lenses..) Thank you again....

[Jay DeFehr]

Thank you, gentlemen, for your compliments and graciousness in excusing my little prank. I learn so much from you all, and the work you post is truly inspiring. Before I left home to come back to work here in Alaska, Julia and I exposed and processed 20 8x10 films, but didn't have time to print them before I left. I used two lenses; my 12" Turner Reich, and my 14-1/2" Verito. I wish I had examples I could contribute to this discussion. Both lenses are fairly short, and there's not much difference in FL between them, but they make different kinds of images. I found TMY is too fast to use with my Verito at wide apertures, due to the slow Studio shutter. Almost every sheet exposed with the Verito was overexposed. Next time I'll use ISO 100, or slower film with the Verito. Maybe I'll try some of that Rollei Ortho stuff from Freestyle, or some of that Chinese stuff from eBay, and save my TMY for sharp images. I digress, with apologies.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Richard Avedon in his famous portrait series "In the American West" used a 8x10" camera and a "standard" lens of 360mm.
The camera was located at about 1.80 metre (6 feet) from the subject.
But he framed what we call in France "le portrait Américain" or "le cadrage américain" i.e. not only a tight shot of head & shoulders !

if you want to see the results of using a standard lens at the 1:1 ratio, something in principe forbidden :D except with a mammoth camera and a focal length of 1 metre / 40 inches (hence at 1/1 with f=1m, the subjet distance is 2 metres same for the bellows draw, but your perspective will be "correct"), you have some examples here with a 7" (178mm) Aero-Ektar used wide open. @F/2.5 By Henri Gaud (this is a kind of provocative and experimental series going againts the good ol rules of what should be a "correct" perspective :) )
http://trichromie.free.fr/trichromie/index.php?post/2010/02/20/Hug

Other examples close to 1:1 standard focal length 210mm in 5x7" (13x18cm) by Laurent Lafolie
http://www.galerie-photo.com/laurent-lafolie.html

An example of a Mammoth camera for portraits at the 1:1 ratio, by Susanna Krauss ; she uses direct reversal B&W paper.
http://www.photoscala.de/Artikel/Kunstprojekt-IMAGO11-die-begehbare-Kamera

[Accordionist]

Style of these linked photographs from Laurent Lafolie are exactly what i want to do :) Than you. So, 360mm will be ok :)

[mcfactor]

I did some 1:1 with a Caltar 300 f/5.6 and a deardorff this weekend. I took an image of a dead butterfly on the side of the road, that (I believe) was 1:1. And a portrait of my girlfriend that was pretty close to 1:1. The photos look amazing, the issues are: the bellows draw is long and the lens is right in the subject's face. I'll try to post them tonight.

[mcfactor]

Im having trouble embedding images so, here are links to the ones I mentioned:

http://noahmclaurine.visualserver.com/Image.cfm?nK=9801&i=139810#1

http://noahmclaurine.visualserver.com/Image.cfm?nK=9801&i=139811#3

http://noahmclaurine.visualserver.com/Image.cfm?nK=9801&i=139814#19

[John Berry]

Thank you guys, i have never expected so fast and relevant answers. :) And when are you posting photographs, could anyone post a photograph of closeup portrait made with
18"+ lens? Just as an example. (because everywhere are only photographs with shorter lenses..) Thank you again....
This might be what some are looking for.
10" TTHC Series II
11.5 verito
305 kodak portrait
19" red dot Artar

[John Berry]

Reverse 1&2

[Daniel Unkefer]

I Like to use a 59cm Zeiss Apo Planar for 8x10 portraiture. It does tend to provide an extremely pleasant perspective. Bellows extension tends to be great, but my Sinar Norma is infinitely extendable, so it's not an issue.

Now I have even longer lenses, including a 760mm F11 Apo Ronar. That should be great for tight facial portraiture.

[jnantz]

i think it all depends what you want your portrait to look like.
and how close you want to be to your subject.
cropped tight head / shoulders longer than 14" on a 8x10 ...
14" is about right for a 5x7. more environment / setting
wider lens ...

[charleshenryosborne@netxe]

Why? Due the perpective. When i try to take a close up portratit photograph with 6x7 and 110mm normal lens, the face will look very ugly. But when I use 180mm mid telephoto lens, everithing looks fine. When i have tried this with 4x5 this efect was still there. (but a little bit less - maybe due the symetric construction) I have just found on photo.net this sentence: One of the strange things about 8x10 is that you don't need your portrait lens to be twice the length of normal if what you're want are to avoid bulbuous noses and have a pleasantly blurry background. And how can you "avoid bulbuous noses" without changing the perpective? Is that because in 8x10 is that actually 1:1?

Quite right, and all the books say that the right length for head and shoulders to fill the image is about 1.5 x normal, or a bit more--at 8 feet from subject.

One of the Deardorff boys published an article years ago about correct perspective (what the eye sees) and gave this formula. Regardless of format or other proportions, for any picture to give normal perspective, multiply the focal length of the lens (I will use inches) by the degree of enlargement of the end photograph. For instance, a 14" lens on 8x10 would give correct perspective of a face (or anything else), without oversized nose and small ears, etc., if printed x1 (14" print) and viewed at 14". Seen at 5 inches it will take on the wide-angle distortions, and seen at 3 or 4 feet it will lose sense of depth and become flatter.

This works when I experiment with it, but professional portrait studios take negatives to be printed at all sizes--and so do most photographers. Since learning about the Deardorff formula, I have taken into account how the photo will be printed and shown, when I choose the lens. Most of my work is merely shown as 8x10 or 11x14 by hand, so the perspective is normal at 1x. Note that the same shot on the 14" lens but with 4x5 film would be enlarged 2x--so it is normal only when you back up twice as far.

The formula works also in 35mm (smaller lens but greater enlargement).

If you want to hang a large photo, sofa-size, you might hang it behind a piano (or sofa and table) so that people must stand the proper distance to look at it. If you want a portrait to sit on a desk at around 3 feet, try the formula.

This ruins the idea that a short lens distorts perspective (long one too). It is all a question of how close or far you are from the final print when you look. A very wide angle shot may (if your eyes can focus) look rather normal at 3 or four inches, preferably with the print curved around your face.

[rdenney]

One of the Deardorff boys published an article years ago about correct perspective (what the eye sees) and gave this formula. Regardless of format or other proportions, for any picture to give normal perspective, multiply the focal length of the lens (I will use inches) by the degree of enlargement of the end photograph. For instance, a 14" lens on 8x10 would give correct perspective of a face (or anything else), without oversized nose and small ears, etc., if printed x1 (14" print) and viewed at 14". Seen at 5 inches it will take on the wide-angle distortions, and seen at 3 or 4 feet it will lose sense of depth and become flatter.

Given that the print is planar and the elements portrayed keep their same relative size, I think this would be hard for me to swallow. And it doesn't seem to match my own experience of looking at prints.

But I agree that people look most natural when viewed from a distance of 6-8 feet. Given that distance, the choice of focal length is really just a choice of how much of the surrounding terrain one wants in the picture.

Rick "for whom the wide-angle effect is only apparent when the camera is close to the subject, not when the viewer is close to the print" Denney

[Asher Kelman]

This might be what some are looking for.
10" TTHC Series II
11.5 verito
305 kodak portrait
19" red dot Artar

The 19" RDA looks the most real!

Asher