What lenses would be best for portrait work

Hi all,
Friend of mine has just accquired a *ist ds body. Suggestions for a good lens for portrait work would be much appreciated.

Something slightly longer than a standard length is recommended for portraiture.

A 50mm lens is a nice length on a DSLR such as the *istDS.

The Pentax 18-55mm Zoom Kit Lens would be a good lens to start with. The 55mm long end would give good portrait photos, at a reasonable price.

For portraits you'll need a reasonably fast lens of between 50 and 85mm. Wide apertures are necessary to ensure out of focus backgrounds. For that reason, kit lenses are not ideal, they just aren't fast enough.

A good portrait starter lens would be a Pentax 50mm 1:1.7, any version and auto focus is not necessary. A 1:1.4 or 1:1.2 would be better, but much more expensive.

link
the 85 mm soft focus is nice if you can find one...

Or the Tamron Adaptall II 70-150mm f2.8 soft. LINK

What price range?
I'm sure we can name many lenses but they will probable cost 4 times as much or more then the camera did.

on the other hand, if money is tight an M series 50mm F2 or F1.7 will cost peanuts and the optics are good. For a little more an A series lens would work with the cameras metering system in a more helpful fashion.

Dear all, thank you for your responses. On price front cost could be a limiting factor so would look at the cheaper options.

regards

Rob

Then the second hand 50mm lenses are very attractive.
Anything secondhand around 50mm to 135mm would be usable depending the space you've.
Please do keep in mind that if they don't have an auto aperture you will lose some shooting options on the camera, also don't forget that most don't have autofocus.

New.
the same as said before anything between 50-135 would do really.
so the kit lens 18-55 is a good one for a very nice price a bit more handy would be the sigma 17-70 for example, that one isn't very expensive either.
or the pentax DA 50-200 might do.

The f-number is quite important here since these zoom lenses don't throw the back ground so much out of focus as some fixed focal lengths can so it depends on what you're looking for.

If price is an issue, then a 50mm is really the only sensible option. It will give significantly better results than any zoom, and be much more flexible as regards DoF.

Don't hesitate, just do it.

http://tinyurl.com/ykashnl

G

Depends on your friends level of experience in photography. Yes of course a 50mm smc would be a great way to go as far as final results are concerned, but if your friends is in an experimental phase and isn't really sure what type of photography they like, they are much better spending some loose change on a pentax kit lense. If they have a little cash to throw around, i suggest starting off with a 16-45. That will give them a scope of portrait and landscape, then from there they can move toward the more expensive prime lenses when they are convinced on what they like

the 16-45 may be a little short in the long end for portriat work, the kit zom and a second hand fifty.... I did not know tamron had a "Soft" lens...Canon, I've heard has an extensive range of soft lenses.

Here is a better pic of it ... I don't use it much but it's quite unusual I believe.

With respect, the question I answered was: "Suggestions for a good lens for portrait work would be much appreciated."

You are answering a different question.

G