The one that lets you stand far enough away, because the distance is what shapes a face rather than the lens. On a smaller sensor the same framing comes from a shorter engraved focal length, and that conversion is a division.
Faces are shaped by where the camera stands. The focal length is the instrument that sets the distance for a given framing.
Why distance does the work
Perspective is a ratio of distances. Close in, the difference between the nose and the ears is a significant share of the camera-to-subject distance, and the nearer feature renders larger. Step back and that share falls, so the features flatten towards the proportions the eye expects.
The figure to read on the barrel
The engraved focal length, always — it is a property of the lens and does not change on mounting. On the smaller of the two formats this catalogue prints, twelve titles carry APS-C against seven for full-frame, and the same framing comes from a shorter engraved figure on the former.
What to look for on a listing
Two things, both published: the focal length, and the aperture at that focal length. A portrait made indoors at f/6.3 is a different proposition from one at f/1.8, and on a variable zoom the figure that applies at the long end is the second of the pair.
What no figure describes
How the lens renders what is out of focus. It is the quality most discussed in portrait lenses and the least published — not stated in any comparable form on any listing here, which is exactly why this site does not rank it.
Where this page and the maker’s own manual disagree, the manual decides. Every focal length, aperture, guide number, stop of stabilisation, load rating and sealing claim on this page is reported from the manufacturer’s own documentation, with its unit written as published, and named as such — none of it is measured here. An engraved figure is reported as the maker engraves it, and is never restated in another convention, because the two are not the same number. And the statement repeated rather than assumed: an equivalent focal length is arithmetic, not a measurement. The millimetres engraved on a barrel describe the optic itself and never change; what changes is how much of the projected circle a given sensor takes out of it. An equivalence is that ratio applied to the engraved figure, and it appears here as a calculation with its format named, never in place of the number on the lens.
What people ask before they commit
Does a longer lens flatter a face?
The distance does, and the lens is how you get there. Photographed from close range, a nose is nearer the camera than the ears by a large fraction of the total distance, and it renders larger; from further back that fraction shrinks. Any lens that puts you at the greater distance produces the same effect.
What does this mean on an APS-C body?
That the engraved figure you want is shorter than the one usually quoted, because the sensor takes a smaller rectangle out of the projection. The framing follows from the engraved focal length multiplied by the ratio of frame widths — arithmetic, done once, and this site writes the engraved figure first.
Last reviewed 12 September 2026