Best Macro lens for Studio work?

I'm working my self into studio photography, and will be shooting mainly orchids and flowers, and other small things, to generalize, i just need extremely sharp images on small images like that, what would the best lens be? i have a canon 7d, and i have a 70-200 f4 is and a tokina 11-16 f2.8 i believe these 2 should be good for shooting bikes in my studio but i dont know about flowers, let me know!

Almost any macro lens will be good. Even old manual focus macro lenses can be excellent and cheap. You just have to decide what focal length you want. The longer the focal length, the more distance you are from your subject at the highest magnification of the lens (1:1 for most macro lenses).

Since you're shooting flowers I imagine you'll be using a tripod. The Canon 60mm and 100mm macro lenses are the first that come to mind. The Tamron 90mm (previous model without VC) is also excellent and so is their 60mm. Sigma has several good macro lenses like the 70mm, 105mm and 150mm. Tokina has a good 100mm macro lens. Some old Nikon lenses with adapters can be good (some of them only get to 1:2 magnification unless you add an extension tube).

Some of the lenses (e.g. the Canon 60mm) only fit APSC camera, which is what you have, so all of these would work on yoru camera. Only avoid these if you plan to change to an FF camera and don't want to have to change the lens when you do.

For that sort of work with a crop camera, I'd usually choose a lens in the 35mm to 60mm range. There are a lot of possibilities:

Tokina AT-X 35/2.8 DX Macro (crop only)
Canon EF 50/2.5 Compact Macro (not USM and not 1:1 without an added adapter)
Sigma 50/2.8 DG Macro
Zeiss 50/2.0 ZE Makro (manual focus only)
Canon EF-S 60/2.8 USM Macro (crop only)
Tamron SP 60/2.0 Di II Macro/Portrait (crop only)

A lens I use a lot for tabletop studio work is the Canon TS-E 45/2.8 "Tilt Shift".... not technically a macro, but close focusing and can do near macro magnifications with extension tubes added. Manual focus only, tilt and shift feature come in handy for this type of photography.

I haven't used all the above... Just the TS-E 45mm and the Tamron SP 60/2.0.

The reason I recommend a somewhat shorter focal length for studio work is that it's often helpful and convenient to be close enough to reach out and adjust the subject while looking through the view finder or at the Live View display. For outdoor work, where live subjects might be shy (or bite or sting) and you have less control over lighting so might accidentally cast a shadow, I usually recommend a somewhat longer focal length... 90 to 105mm on a crop camera.

If okay with manual focus and manual aperture, there are tons of vintage macro lenses that can easily be adapted for use on Canon. 50 and 55mm are quite common. See http://www.bobatkins.c​om …faq/manual_focu​s_EOS.html for info on adapting lenses, if interested.

Money no object: a Zeiss 100mm f2 Makro Planar, they make one of the sharpest macros out there. Not sure about their 50mm, but since you don't need AF, these are going to be the sharpest (< stupid money) lenses.

Otherwise, you might as well get a Canon 60 or 100mm as suggested above. For flowers I'd tend towards the shorter FL on a 7D as amfoto suggests, but I guess it depends a bit on what you have in mind.

They should all be ridiculously sharp. Especially when you use them at F8 or F11, assuming you want to have any DoF whatsoever.

ejenner wrote in post #16313240
Money no object: a Zeiss 100mm f2 Makro Planar, they make one of the sharpest macros out there. Not sure about their 50mm, but since you don't need AF, these are going to be the sharpest (< stupid money) lenses.

Otherwise, you might as well get a Canon 60 or 100mm as suggested above. For flowers I'd tend towards the shorter FL on a 7D as amfoto suggests, but I guess it depends a bit on what you have in mind.

The Zeiss is a 1:2 lens, which will be a hindrance when taking pictures of really small flowers. The 60mm can get away with it because of the focal length, but shooting a flower that's half an inch across from eighteen inches away wouldn't work for me.

If you're shooting very small flowers, like a single Astrantia flower, it will be a hindrance. It should be fine for bigger flowers like tulips or gerberas.

Rashkh wrote in post #16313806
The Zeiss is a 1:2 lens, which will be a hindrance when taking pictures of really small flowers.

Did not know that, thanks. I will bear that in mind when making suggestions.

jefzor wrote in post #16313487
They should all be ridiculously sharp. Especially when you use them at F8 or F11, assuming you want to have any DoF whatsoever.

So this hit's a nerve with me. Not the comment, but at least an issue I have with the 100L. The fact is this lens looses sharpness as you stop down by quite a bit, and a lot more than I'd expect from just diffraction effects. It's still sharp at f8, but I 'feel' like it could/should be sharper.

I wonder if the design was to make the lens sharp at f2.8, which it is, and it sharpens up a bit as you stop down to f4, but then starts to loose sharpness. This is fine for those who want to use it as a portrait lens as well, but for a macro I think you do want it optimized for f8-f11. I don't know much about lens design, so I don't know what it would do to the sharpness wide open, but still. It almost seems like an f5.6 Macro, that was sharpest at f8 would be better, but all the macro lenses are pretty fast.

I don't know if an f5.6 macro would be sharper at f8 than an f2 macro, but I just get the feeling that these lenses are not really optimized for f8 at macro magnifications. I could be wrong though, and it might be that for the price these lenses are about as sharp as can be made at f8.

Having said all that, macro lenses do tend to be pretty darn sharp overall.

Rashkh wrote in post #16313806
The Zeiss is a 1:2 lens, which will be a hindrance when taking pictures of really small flowers. The 60mm can get away with it because of the focal length, but shooting a flower that's half an inch across from eighteen inches away wouldn't work for me.

If you're shooting very small flowers, like a single Astrantia flower, it will be a hindrance. It should be fine for bigger flowers like tulips or gerberas.

ill mostly be shooting phaelnopisis, and othr various orchids, what about a 24-105 L ?

jonathanheierle wrote in post #16314003
ill mostly be shooting phaelnopisis, and othr various orchids, what about a 24-105 L ?

Not good for macro, even with extension tubes. It's not a true macro, so you will need tubes. It might just be acceptable at 50mm, but outside that its not going to be that sharp and has significant CA which gets magnified.

A decent prime with extension tubes would be much better. Possibly even a 50 1.8.

The 60mm on a 7d is excellent, but if you wanted a bit of distance between the lens & subject, 100mm would also give excellent results. For a deeper DOF, you could stack shots.

as Miki says, the 60 is excellent on crops, the 100 is just as good but your working distance changes. Can be handy for bugs, in studio for flowers I'd probably pick the 60 though, less walking

I have to sell my 60 since i went full frame and got the 100 now. I'd never sell it if it would fit on FF cameras. Small and light, I've been very happy with it.

phantelope wrote in post #16314602
as Miki says, the 60 is excellent on crops, the 100 is just as good but your working distance changes. Can be handy for bugs, in studio for flowers I'd probably pick the 60 though, less walking

I have to sell my 60 since i went full frame and got the 100 now. I'd never sell it if it would fit on FF cameras. Small and light, I've been very happy with it.

maybe a 100mm L and a 50mm 1.4 would do it?

ejenner wrote in post #16314000
Did not know that, thanks. I will bear that in mind when making suggestions.

So this hit's a nerve with me. Not the comment, but at least an issue I have with the 100L. The fact is this lens looses sharpness as you stop down by quite a bit, and a lot more than I'd expect from just diffraction effects. It's still sharp at f8, but I 'feel' like it could/should be sharper.

I wonder if the design was to make the lens sharp at f2.8, which it is, and it sharpens up a bit as you stop down to f4, but then starts to loose sharpness. This is fine for those who want to use it as a portrait lens as well, but for a macro I think you do want it optimized for f8-f11. I don't know much about lens design, so I don't know what it would do to the sharpness wide open, but still. It almost seems like an f5.6 Macro, that was sharpest at f8 would be better, but all the macro lenses are pretty fast.

I don't know if an f5.6 macro would be sharper at f8 than an f2 macro, but I just get the feeling that these lenses are not really optimized for f8 at macro magnifications. I could be wrong though, and it might be that for the price these lenses are about as sharp as can be made at f8.

Having said all that, macro lenses do tend to be pretty darn sharp overall.

I haven't noticed that on mine not noticed any drop off in sharpness at different apertures but haven't done comparison testing tho
I don't very often go to f8 though am normally at 5.6 to 7.1
I do like a very narrow DOF

Canon EF 100mm f2.8L Macro IS USM Lens get's my vote love the IS feature....

jonathanheierle wrote in post #16314674
maybe a 100mm L and a 50mm 1.4 would do it?

Will you be using a tripod? If so, save your money and get the EF100/2.8 USM Macro versus the L version.