For portraits I primarily use the 85mm f1.8 which I am not unhappy with, but it's not L glass... And the 85mm 1.2L is out of reach for me, budget-wise, plus it doesn't have IS either. My other lenses are all f4 so they don't generate those nice bokehs...
Would the 100mm f2.8L IS Macro be a good lens for portraits? I would certainly enjoy the IS as I crave that, I do a lot of handheld work... It would also serve me as an occasional macro lens as I don't own any macro lens right now.
The 100L macro should work very well for portraits.
But before you jump in, do consider that there are lots of excellent lenses that
are not L lenses that allow for wonderful portraits.
I have the 100L macro and hope to do some portraiture with it, but the manual focus
Zeiss Sonnar 85/2.8 for the Contax/Yashica system is a maginificent little lens, that
costs less than $400 with adapter or mount conversion and gives superb image quality.
I also feel that Canon's EF 100/2 is an excellent portrait lens, but you have the 85/1.8
and it's very similar.
If you intend to get the whole face in focus, then you certainly don't need to use
a super-large aperture lens. An f/2.8 lens is entirely adequate.
Having said all of this, if you have it in mind to get the 100L macro, you will
not be sorry with the image quality. It's very nice.
I've done portraits using the EF-S 60mm macro on small-sensor bodies, and the 100mm macro on both kinds. Since you're shooting full-frame, the 60mm is out; and I think the 100mm macro is a great portrait lens. Having IS makes it good for handheld, available-light environmental portraits.
Your 24-105 and 70-200 both overlap the 100 in focal length, but they're f/4 lenses, which puts the 100 at a slight advantage when one more stop of light-gathering or a bit less DoF is desired.
I say go for it. While there are also other good and great portrait lenses, I don't think you'd regret this one.
If he has a fast aperture lens and he needs to get the face in focus, he just needs to stop down a few clicks Getting a f2.5 / f2.8 lens is not the coolest sollution around that
Here's an example of the 135L.
I've posted this somewhere on the forum recently, so I apologize for the re-post:
the 135L is great if you are shooting natural light or with ND filters to shoot wide open, but macro lenses are amazing for portraits, they produce such sharp images with a lot of detail. A lot of pros I know shoots with the 180L and for MF shooters they are using macro lenses as well.
adrianb wrote:
If he has a fast aperture lens and he needs to get the face in focus, he just needs to stop down a few clicks Getting a f2.5 / f2.8 lens is not the coolest sollution around that
True, but that's not what trumpet guy said. He said one does not need a wide maximum aperture; he did not say one does need a smaller maximum aperture.
BrianO wrote:
True, but that's not what trumpet guy said. He said one does not need a wide maximum aperture; he did not say one does need a smaller maximum aperture.
What he said was:
"If you intend to get the whole face in focus, then you certainly don't need to use
a super-large aperture lens. An f/2.8 lens is entirely adequate."
What I mean (to clear the confusion) is that a fast aperture lens will be of more use in low light situations...
I mean we don't shoot portraits with speedlites all day..
Also, fast aperture lens will give a different bokeh to the one shot with slower aperture lens..
I was thinking of a Samyang/Rokinon 85 1.4 (manual focus)...
It's better to have the faster aperture at your disposal,should you need it / intend to use it, rather than miss it in low light occasions...
The primary factor deciding depth of field isn't aperture, but focus distance (with FL a very close second). Your 85/1.8 is a fine lens and very sharp. One of the tricks of portraits with face in focus and background not is to get a longer lens. Compare the 300L to the 85L -- You'll have a few inches of DoF with a 300/2.8 (more than the fractional inch with 85L, which tends to blur everything but the eyes), but the background will have much larger blur circles.
But it seems like you're looking for an IS macro option. I would recommend the Sigma 150 OS. About the same price as the 100L, but with 50% longer FL for more compression and background blur+working distance, plus a bit more APO correction than the 100L.
I understand the desire to have a large aperture for times when it is needed.
I have a 135L as well. I was simply suggesting to the OP that if the 85/1.8 didn't give
the image quality he wanted, there are cheaper options to achieve great IQ for most
portraits than jumping to an L glass solution.
I don't have anything bad to say about either the 100L macro or the 135L; they are
marvelous lenses, and either would be a great addition to the kit if they can be afforded.
I think adrianb and I are mostly in agreement.
Bullseye5d2 wrote:
For portraits I primarily use the 85mm f1.8 which I am not unhappy with, but it's not L glass... And the 85mm 1.2L is out of reach for me, budget-wise, plus it doesn't have IS either. My other lenses are all f4 so they don't generate those nice bokehs...
Would the 100mm f2.8L IS Macro be a good lens for portraits? I would certainly enjoy the IS as I crave that, I do a lot of handheld work... It would also serve me as an occasional macro lens as I don't own any macro lens right now.
I have a few comments:
You write about your current lens, "... but it's not L glass." So what? If a non-L lens works well it doesn't matter whether or not it has a red ring and an embossed letter L on the label. :-) I have a bunch of L lenses, but I also have some non-L lenses (primes, in all cases) that I sometimes use instead of an L in situations where they perform better.
You mention the 85mm L and point out that it is out of reach. It is, indeed, a very expensive lens! However, if you like the 85mm focal length, you really should take a look at the (non-L) EF 85mm f/1.8. This is one of Canon's best lenses and the price is much lower.
You also mention "My other lenses are all f4 so they don't generate those nice bokehs..." Not all portrait work is done at larger apertures and huge apertures are not the only way to produce nice bokeh. There are situations in which you might want to shoot a portrait wide open (like at f/1.8 on that non-L lens I mentioned above), but there are many more situations in which shooting wide open is not the best choice. Extremely large apertures, especially on longer focal length lenses, can produce very narrow depth of field - so narrow that the left eye may be in focus and the right out of focus, or the eyes may be in focus and nose not. In many cases it is actually a better and more typical choice to shoot at a slightly smaller aperture... like f/4.
But if you do that, it will affect the OOF background. Fortunately, you have two other ways to control background blur and get the bokeh effect you want. First, by shooting at a longer focal length you will shrink the DOF and make the background elements larger... including the degree by which they are OOF. So the longer focal length itself "improves" the out of focus background effect. Secondly, you can control the distance between the subject and the background. If you shorten the distance between camera and subject and increase the distance between subject and background you increase the out of focus effect on the background. Of course, if you use a longer lens - like the 135mm that someone mentioned - you complicate this since you can't be quite as close to the subject and being further from the subject you would need to put the background even further beyond the main subject.
If you are shooting a cropped sensor camera, for many types of portrait shooting it makes a ton of sense to use the 50mm focal length for just this reason. You can work a bit closer to your subject (which also can create a more intimate effect) and allow the background to be relatively farther away. You might go as long as 85mm on crop. If you shoot full frame the same principles work, though the focal lengths might be a bit longer... though the larger format will also improve the OOF by itself.
Finally, if you otherwise need a macro lens and 100mm is the right focal length then a macro with an f/2.8 maximum aperture can be a very fine portrait lens. However, this only really makes sense if you need the 100mm macro for reasons other than portrait work. If you don't have that other need, then there are other more versatile and/or less expensive options.
It will work just fine and produce nice photos. It is just less flexible than other lenses. You might also consider the 24-105 which has the IS you want.
Getting a f2.5 / f2.8 lens is not the coolest sollution around that 
