Lens suggestion

Acydstyne wrote:

Hello,

i need a lens for taking product pictures. I’ll be using a lightbox (approx 20x20x20 in size) Will mainly be taking pictures of watches and small parts. Do i need a macro lens? Or a portrait lens would be good enough? Watches are all sub $1,500 (not rolexes and stuff) so I don’t really need crazy clear details. Any suggestions? Suggestions on entry level lenses or mid range lenses welcome.

thanks in advance

Edit: i forgot to say, i am using a panasonic G7

If you can make a $100 watch look like a Rolex then you have done your job!

Check out Ming Thein. He is an MFT shooter and one of the best watch photographers in the world. He has pages explaining his camera and lighting techniques.

Do not get a "pure" portrait lens, it probably won't focus close enough. Portrait lenses are engineered for center sharpness and creamy bokeh, not on photographing small objects.

Since you don't have to worry much about being bitten by or scaring away a watch (as opposed to an insect), you could look at the Olympus 30 will give you 1.25X. The slightly more expensive but faster (f2.8 vs f3.5) Lumix 30 Macro is 1X. For strictly watch photography, the extra half stop of aperture won't help much at macro distances - especially since you'll probably want f5.6 and above. I do not know anything about the optical quality of either of the 30mm Macro lenses but both companies make excellent lenses... but do your homework.

Both 30's cost less than the Olympus 60 Macro which is less likely to scare away insects.

More important than the lens is the lighting, and for watch photography, the biggest benefit of the Olympus 60 is allowing a little more room for lighting.

If you can find out what Ming Thein uses for lighting, just copy what he does - as much as you can afford. I do some product photography but not anything nearly as small as a watch. I don't know how much lighting will cost but research that before buying anything so you can budget properly.