Lens Choices for Home Studio Product and Food Photography advice

Hi there,

Please help me ascertain if the following choices are decent lens combinations please. I have approx £1500 - £1800 budget for lenses, for a 6D. The less I need to spend the better.

Background:
I am hoping to start a business, and so far, the products I like to shoot include small (biscuits) to medium sized (bottles, shoes, food boxes, group product arrangements), and more advertising style food layouts rather than food plate/recipe shots, at the moment. Also unusual Still Life Arrangements too. I have all the lighting equipment I need. My home studio space is approx 10ft x 9ft, excluding shelving. My previous camera was a Lumix GH2 with 14-42mm f3.5 to 5.6 lens and a 45mm f2.8 Macro lens.

Whilst delving into Food and Product photography, I bought a very informative CreativeLive course with an experienced Professional Product photographer, who suggested for product photography a 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm. He was also shooting with the T-SE 45mm f2.8 and the Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM Macro Lens.
His recommendations have been my starting point for my choices.


Canon EF 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5 USM Old lens which is £199 used.
Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Macro £234.95
Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM Lens £295
Canon TS-E 90mm f/2.8 £719 used
Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM Macro Lens £409


So guys, what do you think of these choices?
With my small studio space do you think I have enough room for the TS-E 90mm and the 100mm Macro for Shoes, bottles, etc? I am aware about how great the 90mm is supposed to be for Product photography and I can hire both at a relatively small cost to test them out. I cannot find a used TS-E 45mm.
Would I be better served with the Tamron 24 - 70mm f2.8 rather than the 20 -35mm & the 50mm Macro?
Because I want to build a career, do I need, what's considered 'Professional' lenses, such as the Sigma Art and or L glass? I have considered the Sigma 35mm & 85mm f1.4, the EF 24 - 105 f4L and the Sigma Art 24 - 105mm f4, but I could be wrong, as I thought that the f4 would not be as well suited to food photography as a faster lenses, because of achieving shallow DOF?

Please let me know what you guys think.

Many thanks,

D.

A product photographer who suggests to use 35, 50 and 85? There is nothing wrong with that, but unless you want to have a shallow depth of field it does not make much sense to me that those lenses are THE BEST for product photography.

You absolutely don't need fast and expensive glass to shoot product photo's IMO. You are stopping down anyway to get everything in focus, so fast glas is not really necessary.

I think a 24-105 or 24-70 are great for product photograpy. So are the 100mm macro and 90 TSE.
I would skip the 20-35 (too wide) and the 85 (a too long minimal focus distance).

Bonbridge wrote in post #16927168
A product photographer who suggests to use 35, 50 and 85? There is nothing wrong with that, but unless you want to have a shallow depth of field it does not make much sense to me that those lenses are THE BEST for product photography.

You absolutely don't need fast and expensive glass to shoot product photo's IMO. You are stopping down anyway to get everything in focus, so fast glas is not really necessary.

I think a 24-105 or 24-70 are great for product photograpy. So are the 100mm macro and 90 TSE.
I would skip the 20-35 (too wide) and the 85 (a too long minimal focus distance).

Thank you for your helpful reply.

The reason I feel I need fast glass is because I want to get a shallow depth of field for Food photography. I am a bit unsure whether the 24-105 f4 is best suited for that?

I agree with you about not needing the 20-35. I remember now, he was using it on a Crop DSLR.

How much working space do you think I need for the T-SE 90mm for shooting bottles/shoes/toasters​, etc? Also, how about space for the 100mm macro?

D.

http://www.tawbaware.c​om/maxlyons/calc.htm

Many fine sites as this one where you can determine what space you'd need. Given enough room the TS-E 90 is the best for food and prdoucts. It can also do fine portaits.

I would choose the 90mm TS-E hands down. To me, the ability to put the plane of focus where needed is the overriding concern, and f/2.8 is plenty fast enough to limit depth of field too in the context you will be using it. I think for the size items you mentioned, the 45 TS-E would have to be used too close and would exaggerate perspective too much. I think you would have enough working distance in the room you describe if your table is not oversized.

After that, if there are there are other focal lengths you need, I would use inexpensive adapted manual focus lenses- you can pick up great Nikkor,Pentax, Olympus, Contax, etc. glass for very little money as you need them, and in product, the lack of AF and good manual focus helicoids would be a blessing.

If you have all the lighting, you probably have a huge heavy tripod too, a pan/tilt or even a geared head with the TS-E would be great for this purpose.

2ndviolinman wrote in post #16928548
I would choose the 90mm TS-E hands down. To me, the ability to put the plane of focus where needed is the overriding concern, and f/2.8 is plenty fast enough to limit depth of field too in the context you will be using it. I think for the size items you mentioned, the 45 TS-E would have to be used too close and would exaggerate perspective too much. I think you would have enough working distance in the room you describe if your table is not oversized.

After that, if there are there are other focal lengths you need, I would use inexpensive adapted manual focus lenses- you can pick up great Nikkor,Pentax, Olympus, Contax, etc. glass for very little money as you need them, and in product, the lack of AF and good manual focus helicoids would be a blessing.

If you have all the lighting, you probably have a huge heavy tripod too, a pan/tilt or even a geared head with the TS-E would be great for this purpose.

Thank you for your advice 2ndviolinman. And thank you for the DOF Calculator gasrocks.

In actual fact I do not have a huge, heavy tripod just yet. I have the Manfotto Aluminium 190XProb, with the ball head, do you think that this will be sturdy enough? Other than that I might sell it and get the 058b with the 808 RC4 head.

Thanks for your info on the TS-E 90mm vs the 45mm.

Regarding the old manual lenses, would it be possible to shoot with them in Liveview mode with tethering?

D

For what you describe the 90mm TS-E may be a bit long in the room you have. I would suggest that you rent one and find out for yourself. An alternative might be the 45mm TS-E with both the 1.4X and 2X TC. I have both the 45mm and 90mm TS-Es and have run out of space for the 90mm, especially on location.

Rental is always good to get the real answer to the question.

I only have one older tilt shift lens. For tilt, I find tethered to be a huge help, close to a necessity. Perhaps those with more experience don't need it, but joy sticking around a zoomed in image trying to ascertain the intended focus doesn't work for me. In the field I use dslr controller on an Android tablet and it works well, but there may be better solutions for 6d. I have little trouble with shift, even handheld.

A ballhead will suck for this, as you will want control of one axis at a time. Old cheap clunky Bogen with pan tilt would be fine. Their smaller geared head maybe down the road?

Sorry, I read your post too too quickly. There is no problem using tethered Liveview with older non-EF and non-Canon lenses.