What size lens is best for product photography?
The best focal length range for shooting product photography is from 50 mm to 200 mm. It allows you to take beautiful meaningful images with high quality and nice sharpeners, as in real life. But if you want to experiment, you also can play with wide-angle lenses.
Instead, use a lens of at least 50mm. Anything smaller than 50mm could produce wide-angle distortion. For product photography, I typically use a telephoto lens of 85mm or higher with a good lens speed for depth of field.
It's hard to judge these things with online purchases, and they do matter. Some photographer will talk about a 'holy trinity' of lenses that all shooters need in their kit bag. The idea is that you should have a wide lens (16-30mm), a standard (25-85mm) and a telephoto lens (100mm+) in your camera bag.
If it's a small or complex product, truly any approach to product photography can benefit from a macro lens. Use macro lenses for creating still, multi-angle, or 360-degree imagery.
Start with a high aperture — such as f/22 or f/16 — and decrease as needed. In most cases, you'll want to ensure your entire product is in focus, with no blurred edges. Shutter speed. Start with a lower shutter speed — the use of your tripod will help avoid camera shake.
The best product photography setup is a controlled environment with good lighting and a clean background. For lifestyle shots, use models and natural lighting to show the product out in the world.
Since telephoto lenses from 80mm to 300mm are relatively easy to handle, they can be used for various types of photography - from portraits to scenery to wild animals. Called mid-range telephoto lenses, the unique softfocus backgrounds produced by these lenses make them popular for portrait photography.
Physics aside, for product photography, you should choose a lens with a focal length of at least 50mm or preferably, a higher one. Lenses with a focal length smaller than 50mm can force you to deal with the wide-angle distortion.
The 500 Rule
The equation divides 500 by the focal length of your lens. For example, with a 50mm focal length, you'll have 10 seconds before the stars move (500 divided by 50 equals 10). With a 24mm focal length, you'll have 40 seconds before the stars move.
So, if you are looking for a general walkaround lens with good macro capabilities, then a 50mm should be on your list. Or if you want a double-purpose prime for close-ups and portraits, you can't go wrong with a 100mm.
What focal length for close-up product shots?
The 24-105mm focal lengths are versatile for product photography. They allow you to get up close or keep your distance.
The 100mm focal length is perfect for portraits, enabling flattering close-ups without distorting facial features. The Hybrid Image Stabilization allows shooting of beautiful images, handheld in low light.
- Shoot with single-point autofocus. When a camera is focusing, most will try to keep the whole scene as sharp as possible. ...
- Keep your ISO low. ...
- Invest in a high-quality lens. ...
- Improve your sharpness with a tripod. ...
- Use the 1/focal length rule.
That depends on your lens, but again generally speaking, apertures of f5. 6, f8 or f11 will produce a 'sharper' image than f16. Apertures of f2. 8 and f4 can be just as sharp, depending on the lens, but they can suffer from depth-of-focus and curvature of field issues.
To set white balance using a gray card, take a shot with the card filling the entire frame. Then go to your camera's menu, select the option to set a custom white balance, and set it by choosing your photo of the gray card. You can also use shots of your gray card to help fix your white balance in post-production.
For product photography, I tend to most commonly use polarising filters, though ND filters can also be useful if I need to cut out additional light (for example if I need to shoot with a larger aperture and can't reduce the power of my lights any further).
- Set up your background. ...
- Set up your product. ...
- Adjust your lighting. ...
- Use a tripod. ...
- Pick the right camera. ...
- Take multiple pictures and evaluate. ...
- Retouch your pictures. ...
- Optimize images.
- Don't be afraid to use your smartphone's camera. ...
- Shoot from a tripod for photo consistency. ...
- Choose natural light or artificial light. ...
- Fill or bounce your light to soften shadows. ...
- Use a sweep or portrait mode to emphasize the product.
The amount of megapixels that will suit most photographers' needs is between 10-20 megapixels. If you don't need to print or crop, megapixels won't make too much of a difference for you. Luckily, most high quality DSLR or mirrorless cameras on the market today are all at least 15 megapixels.
# of Products | Price / Product |
---|---|
101 – 200 | $35 |
201 – 500 | $30 |
501 – 1,000 | $25 |
Over 1,000 | $20 |
What is the most useful lens size?
Focal Length | Type of Lens | What is it used for? |
---|---|---|
35mm - 85mm | Standard | Street, travel, portrait |
85mm - 135mm | Short telephoto | Street photography and portraits |
135mm+ | Medium telephoto | Sports, wildlife, action |
300mm+ | Super telephoto | Sports from a distance, nature and astronomy |
With a 90mm that extra distance means I can include things in the foreground that really help to guide the viewer's eye. I also think it really helps to lend a voyeuristic feel to an image, as if you were a character looking over someone's shoulder rather than simply seeing whatever the photographer wanted.
An 85mm lens is excellent for portrait work. By isolating the subject and minimizing distortion, this lens can produce captivating, flattering portraits, headshots, and full-body images. Ask “What is 85mm lens good for?” and you're likely to get the default response “portrait work.”
Standard lenses use focal lengths between 35 mm and 70 mm. However, 50 mm is generally considered as the fox all length that closely approximates to humans field of view. The standard lens closely resembles the natural human viewpoint and gives the most realistic appearance.
As a general rule, choose a long focal length lens, like 70, 135, or 200mm to isolate textures and distant features to create dramatic backgrounds. Wide focal length lenses, like 16, 24, or 35mm thrive when you want the entire scene in focus, like when shooting simple landscapes with long leading lines.
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