out4life2016 Loc: Bellingham, Washington

There were so many responses and most I guess needed more detail so I wanted to add. As mentioned before I am shooting a Canon 6DMARKII and I own a 50mm and a 85mm F1.8 USM models. They are great lens and have attached a photo of one recent shoot in my living room with lighting and umbrella set.
My reason for asking is because I am getting more and more request for photos done outdoors using different things for backdrops. By request of clients some want the background blurred and some want some focus on the background. I am still learning to work with clients as before my interest was more into landscape and animal photos.
1st photo is shot with 50mm indoors with lighting.
2nd photo is shot outdoors with Godox speed light mounted to stand and remote on camera hotshoe.
3rd was very first actual person I worked with and was shot with 24-105mm f4 IS lens with Godox speed light mounted directly to the camera.
In closing I need a portrait lens that I can use for outdoor models. All these were shot hand help but do own and use a ball head made by Hedysn with a supporting weight of up to 17 pounds since I bought it to use my 150-600mm Tamron G2 lens for shooting Eagles with.

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jim quist Loc: Missouri

If you really have the itch to buy another lens go for Canon 85 1.2. It will let you do everything you said:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=canon%2085mm%20f%2F1.2&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ps

nervous2 Loc: Provo, Utah

At that price point, I have to ask how much is gained vis-a-vis the 85mm F1.8 that he already has. The existing 85mm should be a very good portrait lens IMHO (although it would indeed be cool to pull out and use the F1.2)

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

It's your money, so it's your decision. But, none of these three examples show opportunities that different equipment would tend to improve. Rather, in all three, different shooting technique and / or processing holds the most obvious potential for improvement. The pose and lighting looks good, how and where to focus seems the area to consider next.

The EXIF has been stripped from all the examples, but for the first two, we see a softness / missed focus that is not representative of the capabilities of the lenses identified. The third seems to have much too small an aperture and / or a misplaced focus, along with much too much oversharpening of the image. Both the 50 and 85 f/1.8s are sharp enough and very capable of creating excellent results, with more practice.

This site will gladly and excitedly spend your money. But, your money would be much better spent by not buying another lens, and instead, spending more time on your shooting and processing technique, as well as considering better software, if appropriate.

wilsondl2 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

Your 24-105 will do all you need. Ad a diffusion filter or two to control the sharpness. I always had a big black golf umbrella and big reflector to control the light. Had the customer bring a friend to hold them. You don't need another lens but if you just have to have one watch for a Spiretone Portagan. It is a 100mm f/4 (only) single element manual lens. It is sharp in the middle and soft on the edges just like an old time portrait lens. Instead of moroe lenses you need to work on your Technic. You can tack vertical shots and closer is better. - Good Luck - Dave

SS319

I agree with CHG CANON. you have the equipment, but it is obvious you missed class the day they discussed portraits. Put that 85mm on your camera and don't take it off for two months!

Set your aperture for the background you want - f:1.8 for a soft bokeh filled background, f:8 or higher for a crisp background.

Set your shutter and or your ISO to control the light balance between your subject and your background - bright background, slow shutter speed, darker background higher shutter speed.

set your light and your reflectors to control the light on your subject

Now, focus on the closer eye and shoot.

When you are not behind the camera, sit in front of your TV or computer and check out the massive number of free videos by top level portrait photographers on how to shoot portraits - indoor, outdoor, fashion, environmental, you may not find more than 1000 hours of quality videos out there.

Matthew Brady used a camera with no autofocus, no image stabilization, no light meter, and only manual settings, and we still look at and admire his photos 160 years later! It is not about the equipment.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Woah!
You need to learn how to walk before you can run.
Another lens isn't going to help until you learn how to light.
Faster & longer isn't going to help with bad lighting techniques, no matter how much money you throw at it.
Your Godox speedlight is probably capable is being used off camera in a softbox or umbrella with a radio transmitter, so you have a start.
Strobist is a great place to start HERE,
and you should check into Neil Van Niekerk's websitge HERE
Or the SLR Lounge for lighting tips using natural light and reflectors.
If you're a Facebook member, look up off camera flash (OCF) sites.

Getting a 5-in-1 reflector and learning how to use it would be really helpful.

The 24-108 & 85 will be fine for now.

That being said, the first two have a lot of potential. I especially like the first one!

out4life2016 Loc: Bellingham, Washington

Thank you
As always your advice is spot on. I have only used the basic software provided with windows 10 as a editing tool. I really need to learn Lightroom and photoshop but every time I start to work with it the photo ends up destroyed basically and me really confused about what proper steps and where to basically start with them. I’ve actually had both subscriptions for some time however recently let them go cause I just wasn’t using them. Maybe I should invest the money into knowledge or detiectional guides to using light room and photoshop. The 85mm was a birthday present to me from a friend so to be honest I havnt shot with it much and I’ve only had it a couple of days. I’m just getting tired of shooting the same landscapes and I tend to work well with people so I thought why not

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

LR is non destructive, so whether you start from RAW or JPEG, you can't "destroy" the initial file and can always revert back to the original if you find yourself on a deadend. The suggestion above for free video training in portrait photography is equally applicable for Adobe software training. I forget from our earlier discussions if we set-up a dropbox. If interested in looking at the technical details of the original files and ideas for LR processing, shoot me your personal email address via a PM and we can look into the details, specifically the AF mode and AF point locations. One of the magics of LR is the ability to share edits back n forth so you can import in a DNG file and see all the slider changes made. I've found this approach very effective as showing how the LR tools combine together to accomplish an edited result.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

At this point in your development of a portrait technique, addition lenses will not make for any great improvement in aesthetics, which is creating a flattering and authentic likeness of the subjects. The equipment you now own is more than adequate for indoor and outdoor environmental portraiture with natural or artificial light.

The issues to be improved are focus, composition, lighting, posing and background management.

If you take the time to post your images in the advanced portrait section, I will be please to offer a detailed critique and remedial technique for each of them. Briefly:

In the first image, the subject is pretty and the expression you captured is very nice but the composition is off balance and the hand is positioned in such a way the fingers are "cut off". The image is out of focus- out of focus is not "soft focus".

Image #2- Agan- great expression. The subject's body is turned too far away and is not providing balance for his head. There is insufficient illumination of the eyes and dark shadow in the orbital areas of the face. Reflector usage would have helped. There is a distracting hot-spot in the background.

In your third image, the flash has significantly overpowered the natural light, overexposed the subject and resulted in a day for night effect. The stone structure bisected the subject and she is "cut off" at the thigh. The background is cluttered and there is a car in the image.

Believe it or not, I do think you are on the right track in that you have good ideas and an eye for expression. The rest are simply "rookie mistakes" and you need a good grounding in the basics.

Right now, don't invest serious money in lenses. Book on portraiture, audio-visual tutorials and classes would be a wiser investment.

If you post theses images in the Professional and Advanced section, I will do a few edits to illustrate my points and talk you through a few solid concepts. No investment required- just your time!



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wilsondl2 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

Since you have a lot of control in Portrait Photography you do not need to do a lot of PP. You use the same setup for many customers so you should have things down pat. Most of the time all I did was get rid of the zits. - Dave

CO

Many people have already mentioned that you don't need anymore lenses. Here are three books I have that are all excellent. The first one listed is very comprehensive and would do the most good for what you're doing. You can do a "Look Inside" on Amazon to see some of the pages.

Mr. Shapiro above mentioned that the young lady's fingers were cropped incorrectly. The first book here has a diagram that shows the do's and don'ts about cropping.

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This one is all about natural light portraits

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E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Routine post-processing applications are part of fine portrait production just as savvy darkroom work and expert custom printing was an important aspect of the total process back in the film era. The problems that I pointed out in my previous post can not be remedied in editing. Good solid camera work is essential. Retouching, traditionally, eas always applied to removal of blemishes or de-emphasis of harsh lines or certain wrinkles but you can't really and effectively correct an awkward pose or the results of a bad camera angle after the fact. There is very little that can be done in editing to correct for poorly applied lighting.

My first serious portraiture teacher addressed the class on the first day of the semester. After saying "good morning" his fort words were "pit it on the negative" and "if it takes more than 5 minutes to retouch and 5 or 10 more minutes to arrive at a perfect print, something is amiss."You should not need to re-shoot every portrait on the retouching desk or in the darkroom, it's not economical or efficient, it slows down production and never yields the best quality results for the client". So..we don't make negatives anymore so just substitute the word "SENSOR" and repace "retouching desk and darkroom" with "COMPUTER" and you'll get the drill in today's technology.

I don't advocate following stringent "rules" in all artistic endeavors, however, photographic portraiture is a discipline and before a photographer can become different, step out of the box, be entirely unique and creative, there are essential basic skills that should be mastered. Otherwise, it's like attempting to write inspired prose or poetry without learning the alphabet. Please excuse my hyperbole- I'm very passionate about portraiture- it's my "first love" in photography!

rmorrison1116 Loc: Near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

There's nothing wrong with the lenses you already have. All you really need is to learn how to use them and how to work with light.
The lens I use most often when shooting portraits with my Canon 5DSr or 5D mk IV is my EF 85 f/1.2L. It's big and slow and has great bokeh. Another lens I use for portraits is my EF 100 f/2.8L, but then I've used my EF 28-300L for portraits also. They'll all work if you know how to make them...
You don't need anything else to do portraits, just practice with what you have.

DebAnn Loc: Toronto

You don't need another portrait lens whether you're shooting indoors or out. A portrait lens is a portrait lens period.