http://www.stevezimages.com/pro-lens-2/
What is a good Canon Lens for a studio?
I have a Canon Digital rebel xti. I also have a home studio with alien bee flash-heads. Right now im working with the kit lens (18-55mm f/4.5-5.6) but im pretty sure that wont cut it with a pro studio… i was thinking either a prime 50mm f/1.4 / 85mm f/1.8 or a 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS lens.
As fhotoace said, I personally don’t see what would be particularly wrong with the kit lens working in a studio environment? Most of the time when I’m working in a “pro studio” environment with strobes I’m shooting at around f/8 or so in the first place, which is plenty fine on the 18-55. Don’t discount it just because other gearheads online are whining about wide open corner sharpness at 18mm.
There is no generic “best lens” for a studio environment. What is your most frequent subject? If you’re taking pictures of watches and products for example, you wouldn’t necessarily use the same type of lens as you would for general portraits.
If you’re taking primarily portraits, you need to consider several things including 1) desired framing of the subject (head, shoulders, full body, group portraits) 2) available working distance (how much space can you put between yourself and the subject) and 3) other artistic qualities needed in the picture (blurred out backgrounds, flat perspectives e.g. photographing paintings). Another thing to take into consideration, especially if you’re transitioning to digital from film is the 1.6x crop factor of the XTi- a 50mm lens effectively becomes an 80mm lens, and so on.
With that in mind, lets take a look at a few options.
The 50mm f/1.4 lens ($290, Link 1) would be a good “general purpose lens”- I use it for half-body shots as well as (occassionally) head and shoulders shots, and in cases with enough working distance, full body shots. Ample aperture room to blur out the background. Also available is the 50mm f/1.2 for amazing bokeh and smooth backgrounds, but considerably more expensive at about $1600.
The 85mm f/1.8 lens ($315, Link 2) is a more specialized lens- I generally use it for head and shoulder shots exclusively, but I suppose if you had enough working distance between yourself and the subjct you could use it for half-body shots. I found this lens to offer superior image quality to my 50mm f/1.8 and f/1.4 with a recommendation to watch for chromatic aberrations and purple fringing on backlit subjects. Similar to the 50mm lens, there is a f/1.2 lens available for around $1600.
If you’re going to go for a zoom, then you have a few things to consider: getting a zoom with an aperture value close to the aforementioned primes will cost a lot more money, and may not offer as good of image quality. The “all star” zoom in this lineup seems to be the 24-70mm f/2.8 at a beefy $1100 (Link 3). The 28-135 lens would be okay for your uses, but it’s a “jack of all trades” so to speak. It does offer a decent range, but the aperture range won’t be useful if you want to blur out the background, and IS isn’t that useful (if at all) in a studio environment. The 50/85 combo would be much better.
If your studio is doing product photography (watches, paintings, jewelry, etc), then primes will be your absolute best bet. With the exception of ultra-wides, primes (especially in the 50mm range) will offer great “flat” perspective photos with none of the Wide Angle distortion you’ll find on zooms, not to mention the better image quality. For closeups, macros will be king. When I was photographing paintings for a gallery’s insurance purposes, the 50mm f/2.5 macro ($240, Link 4) was just right in terms of working distance and perspective. Also consider lenses like the 100mm f/2.8 macro ($435, Link 5) for closeups with great detail. Or, if you can’t afford a macro or am just getting into closeup studio photos, look into a set of extension tubes from companies like Kenko, which are affordable (~$175) and shorten the minimum focusing distance on your lenses. Paired with a prime, you can get good images.
Again, not knowing what you’re photographing or what your budget is, I would strongly advise you to get the 50 1.4/85 1.8 combo. Yes, you may have to change lenses during your sessions, but you’re going to be in an environment where dust is probably not going to be a factor, and most of the time your subject won’t complain.
If I may make another suggestion, if you don’t already have them, look into getting PocketWizard modules to control your strobes. Getting those after carrying the PC cord around with me for so long was a liberating experience. You’ll only need two more than likely- one as transmitter, one on a flash head to receive, then set other heads to trigger optically off of the first head, and you’ll be set. They’re about $190 per transmitter (Link 6)
Good luck, hope this helps.
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