You should decide if a long or short lens will work for you by looking at the results. I have used wider angle lenses at greater distances and some cropping to get a decent "look". Keep in mind that it is the subject to camera distance that controls how elongated or flat a face will appear. If you try to fill a head shot using a very wide angle lens like an 18mm, the face will be narrow and have a big nose, aka "horse face" or extension distortion, common to wide angle lenses. But it is an illusion, because to fill the frame you have to be very close. If you were to move back to the same distance you would need to fill the frame with a 105mm lens, the face will be smaller, but it will look exactly like the 105mm shot, but there will be a lot of space around the subject.

"Look at the size of his head – it appears disproportionately large relative to his body. His eyes, nose and lips are very much enlarged, while his ears are dwarfed. And this was only at 27mm! You can imagine what it would look like if I got closer to his face or used a wider lens at a shorter distance.

This phenomenon is explained with drawings and real images here:

https://photographylife.com/what-is-distortion

Here a quote from the text:

"This is the part that seems to confuse a lot of photographers – the relationship (or lack thereof) of focal length to perspective distortion. You might hear some photographers say that one should use longer focal lengths to photograph people, or they will get distorted due to the lens’ short focal length. This is a mostly false statement, because lenses have no perspective. Other than fisheye lenses, all lenses have the same perspective – it is the camera to subject distance that determines perspective, not the focal length. There is an illusion of different perspective of lenses, because with long focal lengths you have to stand further away from the subject to frame them the same way. If you were to stand at the same distance, the subject would appear exactly the same!"

As far as lighting is concerned, if you have a garage, you can open the garage door, set up a simple background, like maybe a 4x8 sheet of bead board insulation or drywall, and seat the subject in front of the background, with the light from the open door falling on the subject without getting any direct sunlight. Watch your color balance because open skylight is quite cool.

Another approach might be to find an outdoor location that has enough room to put some distance between the subject and the background. Using the most flattering combination of camera to subject distance and focal length, use a fairly large aperture, so that the background can be softly blurred. The best times for these kinds of pictures will be up to an hour after sunrise or an hour before sunse - the golden hour.

You can find a lot of examples some good and some awful - here:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=golden%20hour%20portrait

If you have to add some fill light to open up the shadows on the side of the face not illuminated by your light source - then use a very large reflector. I use one of these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJO9IZPQnKM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAcY5ob2UnE

The larger the light source, or in this case the fill source, the softer the effect and the more open the shadows will be. Placing the beadboard or light closer to the subject will provide softer light than if you put a light or reflector 20 ft away.

Lighting and posing for portraits is best explained using examples:

https://digital-photography-school.com/6-portrait-lighting-patterns-every-photographer-should-know/

My 24 year old grandson is visiting us for Christmas, and our daughter (his mom) wants me to take some portraits of Nick because she doesn't have a current photo of him. I haven't done any portraits before and would like some advice on how to set up for an informal portrait sitting. I don't have lights or a backdrop, other than a beige blank section of our living room wall. All I have is my A6300 and a 16-50 lens and a 55-210 lens. Choice #2 is a Nikon D90 and an 18-105 lens. What I really need is suggestions on how to position him, some effective camera settings, etc. This will be a learning experience for me. I'd appreciate any good advice. Thanks in advance.

Hi Gene51, I think the issue with long vs. short lenses for portrait work has to do with optical compression. The effect is most obvious in landscape work. With a long lens the background appears to be much closer to the subject than it does with a shorter lens. For people the compression effect is more subtle, it affects your perception of the distance between the tip of the persons nose and their ears. In most cases this compression is more flattering to the persons face. I've done it both ways and the image produced by the longer lens always looks better to me. Despite what the quoted author says, most portrait pros prefer the results produced by a longer lens. Pros are pragmatist, if a shorter less expensive lens produces the same effect why wouldn't they go with that? It's not about theory, it's about practical result.

You are incorrect.

Read these articles - and go out and try this for yourself - without changing camera or subject positions - take a shot with a person in it using a tele lens. Then swap the lens for a wide angle and repeat. In an image editor, crop the wide angle shot to show the same angle of view as the tele shot. The "compression" you see in the tele shot will be duplicated in the cropped wide angle shot.

This has been well documented, but you don't need to take anyone else's word for it, but if you must, then you should read these:

https://petapixel.com/2018/07/17/is-lens-compression-fact-or-fiction/

https://admiringlight.com/blog/perspective-correcting-myth/

https://nofilmschool.com/2018/05/lens-compression-myth-whats-really-happening-your-images-when-you-switch-focal-length

https://fstoppers.com/originals/lens-compression-doesnt-exist-147615

Don't feel bad, many photographers get this completely wrong. But when you think about it over, it makes absolutely perfect sense. When I posted the quote from Photography Life - it was because it was a very clear and concise explanation.

If you differ, please post your results that support what you have written. Remember, you need to do this WITHOUT changing positions of the subject or your camera, and cropping the wide shot as well as you can to match the tele shot.

If you still believe you are correct, and your eyes are lying to you, then I really can't help you.

I think the issue is that you have believed the often repeated bad information without fact-checking. It has nothing to do with focal lengths at all.

Here's another great myth. Smaller sensor cameras have shallower depth of field with a given lens at a given distance and aperture compared to using the same lens (focal length), subject distance and aperture on a full frame camera. Or, in other words, for example, 100mm lens on a full frame camera used at F4 will have greater depth of field than the same lens used on an APS-C camera at the same aperture and focused to the same exact distance. If you don't believe this, then check any DoF calculator or chart - changing only the camera sensor size. The smaller sensors will have less depth of field.

You are incorrect.

Read these articles - and go out and try this for yourself - without changing camera or subject positions - take a shot with a person in it using a tele lens. Then swap the lens for a wide angle and repeat. In an image editor, crop the wide angle shot to show the same angle of view as the tele shot. The "compression" you see in the tele shot will be duplicated in the cropped wide angle shot.

This has been well documented, but you don't need to take anyone else's word for it, but if you must, then you should read these:

https://petapixel.com/2018/07/17/is-lens-compression-fact-or-fiction/

https://admiringlight.com/blog/perspective-correcting-myth/

https://nofilmschool.com/2018/05/lens-compression-myth-whats-really-happening-your-images-when-you-switch-focal-length

https://fstoppers.com/originals/lens-compression-doesnt-exist-147615

Don't feel bad, many photographers get this completely wrong. But when you think about it over, it makes absolutely perfect sense. When I posted the quote from Photography Life - it was because it was a very clear and concise explanation.

If you differ, please post your results that support what you have written. Remember, you need to do this WITHOUT changing positions of the subject or your camera, and cropping the wide shot as well as you can to match the tele shot.

If you still believe you are correct, and your eyes are lying to you, then I really can't help you.

I think the issue is that you have believed the often repeated bad information without fact-checking. It has nothing to do with focal lengths at all.

Here's another great myth. Smaller sensor cameras have shallower depth of field with a given lens at a given distance and aperture compared to using the same lens (focal length), subject distance and aperture on a full frame camera. Or, in other words, for example, 100mm lens on a full frame camera used at F4 will have greater depth of field than the same lens used on an APS-C camera at the same aperture and focused to the same exact distance. If you don't believe this, then check any DoF calculator or chart - changing only the camera sensor size. The smaller sensors will have less depth of field.

Gene51, I'm not disputing any of those articles, but it's not how we actually do portraits. What you and they seem to be saying is this: there is no difference between an image shot at 20' with a 35mm prime and the same image shot with an 85mm prime. Let's say I make a 4x6 print of each image. With the 35 the dimension of the person's face is measured in 16ths of an inch. with the 85 the same dimensions are in inches. So now I jump into PS and crop my 35 image so that the person's face fills the frame just like the 85. I print that out and compare. I have done that. They do not look the same, for a variety of reasons, both optical and technical. But why would I do that? If I'm using a 35 for portrait it's likely that I will only be 5' away, for what reason would I stand 20' away (and why would I want to throw all those megapixels away)? If I compare the prints of the images made in that way, they do look very similar. But the print made from the 85 will be more pleasing, again for a variety of optical and technical reasons. For 100 years pro portrait photographers have used long lenses to do their work. They use this expensive glass because the quality of the resulting images justifies the prices they charge. Clients don't care about the equipment, they only want images that make them look good.