Product photography: object warping with mkii and 50mm lens

I've been having an issue with shooting product photography on my canon 5d mkii with a sigma 50mm 1.4 ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0018ZDGAC?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage )
and a zeiss 50mm 1.4 ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001RL2OF0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage )
If I shoot anything straight on, (not at an angle) the object becomes warped badly. I can't figure out why this is the case.
Distance could be 1 foot or 10 feet. Same outcome.

I'm sure this is a newb question, but why would this be happening and what can I do to eliminate this?

See image examples here the warping is always in the top left corner, or you can see a bowing to the image / lens distortion:

taken from 1 foott: http://i.cubeupload.com/8uEGvi.jpg
take from 2 feet: http://i.cubeupload.com/Bs2sYQ.jpg
taken from 3 feet: http://i.cubeupload.com/kiQcXg.jpg
taken from 4 feet: http://i.cubeupload.com/Z753LL.jpg

harryhoods said:

I've been having an issue with shooting product photography on my canon 5d mkii with a sigma 50mm 1.4 ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0018ZDGAC?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage )
and a zeiss 50mm 1.4 ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001RL2OF0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage )
If I shoot anything straight on, (not at an angle) the object becomes warped badly. I can't figure out why this is the case.
Distance could be 1 foot or 10 feet. Same outcome.
I'm sure this is a newb question, but why would this be happening and what can I do to eliminate this?

See image examples here the warping is always in the top left corner, or you can see a bowing to the image / lens distortion:

taken from 1 foott: http://i.cubeupload.com/8uEGvi.jpg
take from 2 feet: http://i.cubeupload.com/Bs2sYQ.jpg
taken from 3 feet: http://i.cubeupload.com/kiQcXg.jpg
taken from 4 feet: http://i.cubeupload.com/Z753LL.jpg

Click to expand...

Your lens has barrel distortion. This is not surprising for a 50mm f/1.4. You can correct this in post-processing or you can use a lens that doesn't distort, like a 50mm f/2.5 macro.

If you use a Canon lens, your JPG's would probably incorporate correction for distortion but it's not going to know what to do with a third-party lens.

In post processing, some programs allow you to correct for barrel distortion. In other words, it will "square up the lines."

Thanks guys.


Is there a better choice of lens to not have to deal with this? How will I know for certain that a Canon 50 2.5 macro won't have barrel distortion? How can you identify this sort of thing? I'd love to learn why.

I'm a little wary of using a macro lens since i'll have to shoot further away, I'm not shooting 'macro product photography'.

And what is this with Canon lenses auto correcting?? I've never heard of this, how can I know if this is a feature of the lens with the mkii ?

What do you guys think is the ultimate product photography lens?

Thanks for the thoughts, guys.

harryhoods said:

Thanks guys.

Is there a better choice of lens to not have to deal with this? How will I know for certain that a Canon 50 2.5 macro won't have barrel distortion? How can you identify this sort of thing? I'd love to learn why.

Click to expand...

Because ALL "macro" lenses are carefully corrected for several things:

• Geometric distortion [the thing you are noticing]
• Chromatic Aberration
• Flat field

In addition, they are VERY sharp lenses.

harryhoods said:

I'm a little wary of using a macro lens since i'll have to shoot further away, I'm not shooting 'macro product photography'.

Click to expand...

A 50mm "macro" lens is just a 50mm lens. It will NOT affect your shooting position!

harryhoods said:

And what is this with Canon lenses auto correcting?? I've never heard of this, how can I know if this is a feature of the lens with the mkii ?

Click to expand...

The lenses don't auto-correct. Any auto-correction would be done in the body. If the camera senses the lens, it will know how much geometric distortion it has and will apply a correction.

harryhoods said:

What do you guys think is the ultimate product photography lens?

Click to expand...

A "macro" lens. There are many! The primary choice is focal length. Shorter FL are often poor choices because they will be very close to small subjects and that makes it difficult to illuminate the subject. I would not get less than 50mm. A very popular and good macro lens is the Tamron 90mm f/2.8. It has been one of the best for many years.

harryhoods said:

Thanks for the thoughts, guys.

Click to expand...

harryhoods said:

Thanks guys.

Is there a better choice of lens to not have to deal with this? How will I know for certain that a Canon 50 2.5 macro won't have barrel distortion? How can you identify this sort of thing? I'd love to learn why.

Click to expand...

There are reports on this sort of thing:


I have used this lens for copying artwork. It does not have any noticeable distortion.

harryhoods said:

I'm a little wary of using a macro lens since i'll have to shoot further away, I'm not shooting 'macro product photography'.

Click to expand...

Most macro lenses, including this one, work just fine at longer distances.

harryhoods said:

And what is this with Canon lenses auto correcting?? I've never heard of this, how can I know if this is a feature of the lens with the mkii ?

Click to expand...

Most cameras do distortion correction when they make JPG's as long as it's one of their own lenses.

harryhoods said:

What do you guys think is the ultimate product photography lens?

Click to expand...

Macros are popular. Tilt-shift lenses are even better. So for your camera I'd say this was ultimate: