topic Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations in EF & RF Lenses

Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

hchinkel — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 14:24:09 GMT

Hi everyone!

I am taking our company's headshots but don't have much experience with photography. We recently purchased a Canon EOS R100, and I'm in need of lens recommendations. We'll be taking these indoors (Lighting kits recs would be great too!), and I'm hoping to keep the lens price $500 or less. I would greatly appreciate your help!

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

kvbarkley — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 14:36:35 GMT

What lens do you have?

At your level the kit lens should work fine. The idea is to practice, practice, practice. As you identify deficiencies, you can make changes.

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

hchinkel — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 14:39:38 GMT

I just have the kit lens right now. I'm hoping to make these looks as professional as possible!

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

p4pictures — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 14:49:01 GMT

Probably the best way to use your $500 budget is to get the RF 50mm F1.8 STM lens, currently $199 from Canon and spend the rest on one or two LED lights with soft boxes. I'd also study how professionals light headshots, knowing that it does vary between white background and in-conference room or office locations.

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

kvbarkley — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 14:50:10 GMT

More gear will not make them look "professional", as I said, practice.

Find a good window with northern exposure and go for it. Just like the old masters.

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

ebiggs1 — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 15:52:16 GMT

Pay attention to this........

"I just have the kit lens right now."

That is all you need so don't listen to any body suggesting you buy a different lens. It will be wasted money.

I can't any more strongly disagree with this advice below.

"Probably the best way to use your $500 budget is to get the RF 50mm F1.8 STM lens, currently $199 from Canon and spend the rest on one or two LED lights with soft boxes.

First off you have 50mm in the kit lens already. Secondly using light boxes for a novice is wrought with issues.

Again read this once more, "More gear will not make them look more "professional"..."

I am a person that did this type work for 40 years for a large company in KC and my own private practice still to this day. Beyond the camera and lens you will need a suitable backdrop and some photo editing software. You can get the latter form Canon for free. Its called DPP4 and you d/l it form the Canon website.

"I'm hoping to make these looks as professional as possible!"

Then hire a professional photographer it is very much likely to be the cheapest way to go. I don't know your area or how many photos are needed so I don't know how far $500 bucks would go toward that.

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

Tronhard — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 15:51:16 GMT

Like my respected colleague Ernie, who has a background in this, I am wondering why you, as an admitted novice, have been assigned this task for a business purpose instead of hiring a professional. I would guess it is a small business with a limited budget and hopefully not too many employees. If that is so, all we can do is try to make this work for you as best we can.

As my colleagues have alluded to, this is a limiting budget and for any decent lens you will not be looking at a significant lighting rig. Personally, as @KVBarkely said, a good source of indirect natural light is best to give you a soft, even light to keep things simple, and so you don't need lighting gear. I recently took a series of headshots for a professional group of scientists as a favour as they had NO budget, and these are some samples of the results using that lighting technique.
EOS R6II, EF 70-200Lf/4 MkII@ 126mm, f/5, 1/160sec, ISO-1600 EOS R6, EF 70-200Lf/4 MkII@ 129mm, f/6.3, 1/160sec, ISO-1250 R6II, EF70-200/f4@154mm, f/7.1, 1/200sec, ISO-3200

Things of note:
1. I chose a plain, neutral background (I used a mid-gray as it was in the foyer of their building and that reflectance of background will give a good exposure reading ), I was looking for a consistent background - you don't want lots of significant changes in colour or clutter. The indirect, soft light reduced facial shadows, stops them squinting and, by reducing wrinkles, makes people look younger (which you will find older folks like).
2. In my case I was using a full-frame camera with a focal length between 70-130mm - in your case, because you have a crop-sensor camera, which has a magnifying effect, you would select something in the range of 50-80mm.
3. I had the subjects about 3m (10ft) away from the wall to keep it out of focus, and avoid wall shadows, and shot with a focal range in the f/4 -f/8 range. You would likely shoot from f/2-f/4.
4, I was using auto ISO but limited to 3200.
5. Shoot in both JPG and RAW file formats, both at maximum resolution
6. Make sure you have Face and Eye tracking for people turned on in the camera and, if you are shooting hand-held that image stabilization is on. Also, look through the viewfinder not the LCD and hold the camera properly:

So, a lens as has been suggested one of the following, which you can get from the Canon Refurbished Lens Store:
a) $160 for a 50mm would give you an equivalent focal length for your camera of 80mm:
Shop Canon Refurbished RF50mm F1.8 STM | Canon U.S.A, Inc.
b) $490 for RF 80mm f/2 Macro lens - an equivalent FL of 135mm, also excellent for portrait work and a shade under budget:
Shop Canon Refurbished RF85mm F2 Macro IS STM | Canon U.S.A., Inc.

In both cases you need to compose so that you get roughly the torso or bust in view, make sure the camera is level and get the subject to look directly at the lens. I often suggest they close their eyes, and I give them a countdown to open them, at which point I take the shot - which makes the pupils of the eyes larger.
Men often prefer to be slightly oblique to the camera (although not always depending on light) women prefer to face on - it reduces wrinkles.
Beware of reflections or distortions from glasses, so position your subject carefully to avoid that. Also watch for bright reflections of bald heads or jewelry!
Beforehand, tell everyone what the procedure is, when and where to go, and that everyone should be clean, and dressed according to company policy - tell them this is how they will be seen by their clients. If there are a lot of people, you may want to give different groups specific time slots and be prepared to adapt and negotiate - business will go on even when you are shooting.

When taking the images, if you can, take a few moments to talk to the person about their job, hobbies or whatever to make them relax it makes a difference to the muscles of the face and neck. I always assure them that there will be no images published without their approval, it takes away some of the stress and that I can re-shoot if they don't like the results.
Take several images, and I usually do one slightly facing left, then centre, then slightly right: not just one. Everyone has a preferred side.

You will need to do some post processing and if you have a art/marketing department they will likely have software and the skills to complete the image process. Otherwise you may want to become acquainted with Digital Photo Professional 4, which is a free program with your camera and is used to process images.

Recon the location and find someone to practise with before the actual shoot to make sure you are not in learning mode.

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

stevet1 — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:49:10 GMT

hchinkel,

From what I have observed, people doing portrait work seem to prefer lenses in one of three ranges: 135mm, 85mm, and 50mm.

135mm will give you headshots. 85mm will give you body shots. 50mm will give you shots of your subject in their environment.

Look at the three samples that Trevor provided: 126mm, 129mm, and 154mm.

Of course, it will depend on how close you are to your subject. You can take a 50mm lens and fill up the entire frame with your subject's nose, if you are sitting in their lap. 😁

Steve Thomas

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

Tronhard — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 16:12:00 GMT

Hi Steve:

Thanks for your input, just note that the focal lengths I provided with the sample photogs were for a full-frame camera, as I mentioned because the OP is using a crop sensor camera, so my focal length (as indicated in the sample images) should be divided by 1.6 to get the values the OP wants.

Consequently, the focal lengths they would use would be 50mm or 85mm to get the equivalent of an 80mm or 135mm on the FF body. I used lenses of those values to make sure they did not give an unflattering effect for the subjects and, as you correctly observe, provide some distance between me as the photographer and my subject - for their comfort. Thus those are the lenses I have recommended and provided purchase links for.

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

stevet1 — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 14:31:36 GMT

Trevor,

Yes. I thought of that after I had hit the send button. I hope that hchinkel, understood that I was referring to equivalent focal lengths.

On his crop sensor camera, an 85mm lens would be equivalent to 136mm, which I think would be good for head shots.

Steve

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

ebiggs1 — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 16:20:45 GMT

OK first lets make sure we know what you already have. You bought this Canon EOS R100 Mirrorless Camera with 18-45mm Lens? Let's be clear the 18-45mm is equivalent to approximately a 28-70mm lens on a FF camera which are the FL of the advice given above. 70mm wil be a good FL to use.

Try what you have first. Secondly about light as mentioned above natural light is always best. If you have the opportunity to go outside and do these shots, do that. Preferably a shady area that is out of direct sunlight.

This is a Senior photo but is the same technique. I used a 60mm equivalent lens which falls in the range of your kit lens. Keep in mind FL and be achieved with your feet as with feet from subject as well as with any lens.

Daylight in a shady area of Baker University campus. 60mm, f6.3, SS 250 and ISO 400. Don't make it more difficult than it has to be. KISS is best.

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

wq9nsc — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 17:00:38 GMT

Ernie,

My only objection to your response is you should have use bold font for your point about using natural light 🙂

I have done many types of photography for decades but doing artificial lighting WELL is an entire new area of knowledge. I bought a pretty extensive Hensel studio flash setup several years ago with multiple monolight strobe heads, an assortment of light modifiers from simple umbrellas to beauty dishes, and a matching handheld light meter. After 6 years I am still learning and improving. It is easy to get mediocre results with artificial lighting and far more difficult to get excellent results. Add to that there is a wide variation of style based upon the purpose, mood, and taste of the "client/decider" (i.e. do you want a fairly "flat" evenly illuminated head shot, something very dynamic with accentuated highlights, or something in the middle). Illumination of the background becomes another important decision for a head shot.

Since Canon doesn't offer extensive studio style lighting and Hensel doesn't sell cameras or related imaging equipment, hopefully this link doesn't violate our site guidelines. Hensel Light Guides showcase the work of some of the greats and most lighting setups are far more complex than what most here would use BUT it gives a newcomer a good idea of the wide variety of "style" that is considered good or great by different photographers with different tastes or client demands: https://hensel.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/hensel_lightguide_2.pdf

Rodger

Re: Headshot Advice Needed - Lens Recommendations

adamsc — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 05:40:05 GMT

If you're doing indoor headshots with the EOS R100, you'll want a lens that gives you some nice compression to flatter faces and can handle lower light, especially if you're not using big lights.

Here are some good lens options under $500:

Canon RF 50mm f/1.8 STM – This one’s sharp and budget-friendly, perfect for getting those close-up headshots that look natural. It's great for smaller spaces too.
Canon RF 85mm f/2 Macro IS STM – It's a bit more expensive but still under $500. It gives off a classic portrait feel with nice background blur. Plus, it's got image stabilization, which is super helpful for shooting without a tripod.