These Aztec dancers were photographed with a 180mm lens at f2.8 on a film camera. The equivalent focal length on a digital SLR without a full frame sensor would be 180 divided by 1.6 = 112 mm . What you see is the full frame. If needed, the picture could have been cropped to exclude their feet. So a telephoto of about 100 mm, if you can step back far enough, is a good choice for group shots of 5 people.

How do you choose which lens to use?

If lighting is not an issue, the answer to that question depends on your subject.

Since I do mostly portraits, the 50 mm f1.4 is on my camera most.

I start there but will switch lenses to the 100 mm 2.8 macro and even the 80-200 f2.8 zoom. Since I light most of my portraits, I can get away with hand-holding that old lens which doesn’t have image stabilization. Continue reading Choosing which lens to use →