WHICH IS WHICH?

a macro lens compared to two portrait lenses: is there any winner ?

Very often keen amateur photographers spend their time in Fora and discuss about the use of medium telephoto lenses for portraits.

How many times have you read sentences like the following ones:

"Macro lenses have excellent optical quality, but they're too sharp and have too much contrast to be desirable portrait lenses..." ?

About *portrait* lenses, people say: "You only want selective sharpness, usually in the area of the eyes, and medium contrast so that skin imperfections aren't exaggerated. The manner in which sharpness is realized needs to be in a way that shows detail in the eyes but doesn't advertise skin imperfections. Color rendition should emphasize skin tones, not be neutral."

Well, very often people speak about what they read in books, magazines or websites. Sometimes, but not very often, they speak on the basis of extensive, long lasting experience. Even professionals have not enough time to perform side-by-side tests and to compare the performance of different lenses when used in different kinds of photography (like portraiture, landscape, close-ups, etc.). Professionals have to spend their time taking pictures and trying to sell'em. They have not so much time to discuss about such trifles ...

For the above reasons I've scrutinized my photo archives and found many pictures of my youngest daughter that were taken with different lenses.

I've selected 6 (six) images. Two were taken with a Nikkor AF 85 mm f/1.4D; two were taken with a Nikkor AIS 105 mm f/1.8 and two were taken with a Micro-Nikkor AFS VR 105 mm f/2.8G.

You can see these pictures below. For each image, I've indicated only the aperture I set. I used APS-C digital reflex cameras (Nikon D200 & D300). Are you able to discern unambiguously which were the pictures taken with each lens and in particular with the macro lens? If not, this confirms that macro lenses are suited for portraits ...

Bye!