what lens to choose for canon 60d

Hi guys,

I'm new to this forum and need some help of you all.
I bought a canon 60d and I know a little about the canon series and lenses but having some difficulties with choosing a lens.
canon 60d is already fixed, Like to start with a studio and before this I did a lot of street work but now I'm changing to studio and video.
So what i like to do is starting up a studio indoors at my home. so for this part I need a good portrait lens, but my budget lets me only to choose one lens and this of course for the portrait section but also for the video section.
I have thought and looked and searched for many options, my option is going towards the canon 24-70 2.8 or maybe the closest one for me the canon 35mm 1.4 L series.
I can affort only one lens en thats it. so I like to make a good decission.
Are there any other options that you guys can give me about this situation.
on the video section it will be on starting base, with band filming and public filming in concerts and phot section mostly portraits, head to shoulder and sometimes complete body. studio is not to big so a zoom like 70-200 will kill me with the little space I have.
I'm leaning towards the 35mm 1.4 but my attention also goes to the 24-70 2.8. read a lot of reviews about it.
Can anyone give me some more options. one more thing, the budget is not to big let say, maximum of 800 euros...so I try to buy a second hand lens....think its a good investment in lens than camera thats why.

thanks everybody.

You could also buy a 24-105L and 85 1.8 with €800. Which would give you a good lens for portraits and a good lens for videowork/all-round photography. 85mm might be a little tight for your studio, but the 24-105mm also functions as a decent portrait lens.

Otherwise you could consider the Sigma 18-35 1.8 for wider portraits along with an 18-135 STM for great videowork capabilities. I have this combination and I simply love it.

Most of my portrait work was done with the nifty fifty. EF 50 f1.8 STM nowadays.

Now I use my EF 24-70 MkII at around 50. Still use the 60D rather than the 5DIII because of the 60D's Flash Controller.

An 85 will take you out of a normal room for anything other than tight headshots.

A 35 may/can work for some atmospheric portraits. My wife took a look at a photo (portrait, half body size) of hers at around 35 and dryly said 'lose it...'.

YMMV

do you already have the lighting aspects covered?

Don't go with 35 - just not very flattering for portraits. Get minimally the cheapo 50 mm and some good lights....

Studio work is not particularly taxing on a lens. By that I mean the need to stop down makes most lenses sharp enough and that there is little need for fast apertures. So the main consideration is focal length. I would suggest that a 50 on your camera would be great for headshots. If you want to do full body work then perhaps a 35. Zooms are fine, just make sure you read up on the concept of perspective distortion as its very important when selecting a focal length for portrait work. Honestly lighting is the key to portraits as many lenses can do the job in good light, but no lems can fix bad light.

For the price of the Canon 24-70/2.8L Mk2 you could buy:

• Canon 28mm f/1.8 ($510)
  
• Yongnuo 35mm f/2.0 ($100)
  
• Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM ($125)
  
• Canon 85mm f/1.8 ($370)
  

thanks gus for taking the time to help me with some more info.
I didn't covered lighting aspects yet, but on that side I'm covered a little bit. My friend has some softboxes and a speedlite 430x so I think it should be enough for the starting option.
Lens is my biggest issue. I see something in the 85mm 1.8 but should be a little difficult cause of the tight space.
24-105 is one option or maybe the sigma 18-135, I don't know if its sharp enough.
I think the first one on the list will be for sure the 50mm 1.8 stm the new one...

ow yeah spece of my room is 4 by 3 mtrs... don't know if 85mm 1.8 is enough or not, maybe one question, is the 85 also good for video or not?

i'd buy an 18-135STM and spend more on lighting...85mm may be a little tight depending on how you want to frame them up...so if you've got 4 meters to work with, you're going to want them a bit off of the wall...if from 3m away you'd frame up 79cm X 52cm at 85mm


but i think you for sure need to realize that lighting will be more important than a lens for studio work

Dre daze I want to make a good choice because if I buy only one lens it should have the possibilities for studio and for video. thats why I try to buy one good lens or maybe two. one for video and one for portrait//studio

yamakashi wrote in post #17900834
Dre daze I want to make a good choice because if I buy only one lens it should have the possibilities for studio and for video. thats why I try to buy one good lens or maybe two. one for video and one for portrait//studio

Limiting yourself to the idea of one lens is like owning one cooking pan. You might make it work, but its goimg to be the wrong tool as often as it is the right one.

In a studio setting lighting is going to give you better results then lighting.

Hard to tell you what lens to get without knowing how big your space is and what kind of portraits you're going to take.

The 18-135 stm is a good lens and will be good for portrait and video work. The 50mm STM is also a good choice.

Voting ef-s 17-55. Well under budget, leaving plenty for lighting gear, covers portraits on the long end, good focal length range for crop, and image stabilized for video. Not STM but that shouldn't make any difference on a 60d anyway.