Lenses and headshots

[Bruce Foreman]

Originally Posted by Dave Brown

Cheap headshots shot on cheap digital Rebels with cheap kit lenses, shot by their boyfriend or uncle are the bane

You're mostly right but I will take a bit of exception with the above statement.

It is mostly the visual sense and skill level of the person behind the viewfinder that matters, a cheap digital Rebel with cheap kit lens can work very well in the hands of one who knows what he is doing. I used to operate a portrait, wedding, and commercial studio shooting mostly with Hasselblad, Mamiya RB67, and Camerz long roll production cameras. The digital age swept in while I was a civilian staffer at an air force training base, when I retired we were working with 1.5MP Kodak adaptations of Nikon cameras (I think the air force was paying about $40,000 each).

I got away from photography for about 4 years but got drawn back in, the most affordable "real" digital camera then was the first digital Rebel at $999.99 at Walmart, I managed to get one.

I'm looking at a display print on my wall right now shot with it in 2004, a 16x20 of Whitehorse, an Indian re-enactor, shot with the 55mm end of that "cheap" kit lens in soft daylight in open shade cast by a teepee. Definition matches what I used to get from 6x7cm negatives shot with the RB67 outdoors and printed by a pro lab. I had it printed by MPIX and hang it when I'm invited to display.