Another excuse for a thread with boobs.  Nice going.

Just reverse what Frank Capa said  "If your pictures are distorted, your standing too close". 

For those who don't know, Capa originally said:

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough."
Robert Capa

You digital people will have to do your own math conversions here because of sensor size differences.

In 35 MM I agree the 50 MM is not the best choice for distortion free portrait faces. I've always preferred and used my
105 MM. Sometimes if I only have my 28-85 MM using it at 85 MM works very nice.

On my Hasselblad the 80 MM works fine if there are two or more people in the frame but that lens will bend features if you try to close in on one single person, and you can't get close enough with it. That is why I have the Zeiss Sonar 150. The 150 does the trick nicely for the medium format.

BUT, BUT, BUT, lots of beautiful creative portraits are made with the use of wider lenses. Someone here posted a great shot done with a 28 MM Leica. National Geographic photographers almost always seem to use wide view lenses, shooting great scenes of people in their surroundings; creating beautiful sweeping dramatic scenes.

And Martin Schoeller's close up mug-shot portraits with their crazy light and distortions made him famous. Incidentally Schoeller does those portraits with large format film cameras and big gridded Kino Flow lights. Interesting effect, it's purely chemical photography with no computer editing effects.

Never count anything out. You never know what trying different stuff can bring till you try it.

No no, like the Italian guy in the joke, " you takin too big-a bites-a "