Canon 24mm 1.4 distorting faces for close ups.

[Admin US West]

With a 5d II, for portraits, start with a 85mm lens. The reason is that a bit longer lens flatters a face while a wide angle lens distorts the closest area (the nose). Even a 135mm L is excellent for head and shoulder portraits, and if you can stand back a ways, a full body.

For example, here are some 135mm portraits taken at our local school play with my 5D MK II. It is my favorite lens for this type of use, most of the images are wide open.

This one is with my 35mm L

 

[LFG530]

IMO stick to the 24 (wich is a too awesome lens to forget about it for low light) and you might consider the 100 2.0 (wich is cheap and great) to give you a good reach. And I think shooting primes is an awesome way to start and learn/ work on the framing and learn the options of your slr.

Anyways if you don't need reach I'm still strongly suggesting the killer combo 24+50(canon) the 50 zeiss is pretty deceiving for the double of the price w/o af. If you want a good zeiss wait to have 1000 + to spend (the 35 2.0 is great and the 100 2.0 is out of this world).