Do I need a new lens for cake-topper product photos with a Canon 60D?
Asked 3/15/2016
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I’m new to photography and sell cake toppers online. I use a Canon EOS 60D with the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens, and I’m building a light box to improve my product photos. For tabletop shots of cake toppers—sometimes on a display cake—would a different lens help, or is my current lens good enough? If I do need another lens, what type should I look at?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
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The lens you are currently using looks to be doing fine. Adding "oomph" to your photos is all about the size and direction of the light as well as using a more appropriate background, and not about buying a more expensive lens.
Since I couldn't say it any better myself, I'll include this quote from mattdm he posted in the comments below:
I would put it like this: there are lenses with better technical characteristics for product photography, but the difference there between much, much more expensive lenses and the one you have is negligible compared to the importance of lighting, staging, technique, and (to some degree) post-processing.
Looking at the questions here with a product photography tag would be a good place to start. Another excellent resource is David Hobby's Strobist blog, particularly his Lighting 101 series.
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
For this kind of product photography, your current 18-55mm lens is likely good enough. The biggest improvement will come from lighting, background, staging, and technique—not from buying a more expensive lens.
A light box or other soft, controlled lighting will help far more with “oomph” than a new lens. For web shop images, the kit lens is usually sufficient, especially if you stop down to around f/8 for better sharpness and depth of field.
A macro lens is worth considering only if you need tighter close-up detail shots than the 18-55 can manage. Good options in that category include Canon macro lenses around 60mm or 100mm. Macro lenses are very sharp and focus closer, but for typical online product photos their advantage may be modest compared with better lighting.
So: start with the lens you have, improve the lighting setup and background, and only add a macro lens if you specifically need closer detail images.
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