lens for shooting products with a Canon 20D

coint

Hi,
I'm new member here. I need your advice. I got a Canon 20D and a Tamron 18-250. I'm thinking of buying a new lens for my 20D. This new lens will be used for shooting table tennis products.

Can anyone plz advise me what lens I should buy?

Thanks a lot.

Coint

ziggy53

Coint, welcome to the Digital Grin.

I shot products for over 31 years. Lots of ways to accomplish it depending on the size of your products.

What is it you want to photograph? (I know you said "table tennis products" but please be more specific about the largest and smallest items.)

Are you looking to produce images for a catalog? Internet? Flyers and promotions? Trade show kiosks? In use?

jforbes

If the products are all small ones, a macro lens may be a good choice - not necessarily because it can focus very close, but because they're inexpensive and very sharp, and will focus as closely as you need them to. The Canon EF-S 60mm F2.8 is a nice lens, and would be able to handle product photography needs just fine. An option with a longer focal length would be the Tamron 90mm macro - they are extremely sharp for the price, and focus significantly closer than the 60mm Canon does - probably closer than you need.

Another alternative is to get a normal zoom lens that has decent close focusing capability - your 18-250 may even do the trick - it can do 1:3.5 reproduction, which will be adequate for most items.

What you really, really need is a light box, and some lights.
http://blog.makezine.com/lightbox-2.jpg

Like this - that will let you get the results you're looking for.

I would actually recommend making or buying a lightbox first, then look at lenses that you might need to shoot the items you need to shoot. You may find that the long zoom is perfectly adequate, or you might want something that will focus closer or is sharper. But the lighting is by far most important to get good results.

coint

@ziggy53: The table tennis equipement that I am working with is mainly the paddle, rubber, table (largest), ball (smallest). It's for an online catalogue of my friend.

@Jforbes: the Canon EF-S 60mm F2.8 will be rather expensive for me. I forgot to mention that my budget is very limited. It should be less than 500 USD ):
The Tamron 18 - 250 is not as sharp as I expect ):
Can you show me how to make this lighting box? It sounds interesting. Is it difficult?

Thank you so much for your time on my question

ziggy53

coint wrote:

@ziggy53: The table tennis equipement that I am working with is mainly the paddle, rubber, table (largest), ball (smallest). It's for an online catalogue of my friend.

@Jforbes: the Canon EF-S 60mm F2.8 will be rather expensive for me. I forgot to mention that my budget is very limited. It should be less than 500 USD ):
The Tamron 18 - 250 is not as sharp as I expect ):
Can you show me how to make this lighting box? It sounds interesting. Is it difficult?

Thank you so much for your time on my question

I am moving this thread to Technique since that is more important than the equipment.

Fortunately, an on-line catalog does not require much optical quality. Proper lighting and background is much more important.

If you have access to a P&S camera that has a close-up mode and off-camera flash capability that might be all you need.

I think the "lightbox" Jeff was referring to is in this article:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2006/07/diy_light_box.html

A product table and "light tent" is the traditional method of dealing with smaller products, depending upon the specific needs.

A simple DIY light table and tent is here:

http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/light_box_light_tent

If you want to use your dSLR for the project, a close focus lens like the Sigma 18-50mm, f/2.8 EX DC SLD ELD Aspherical Macro might suffice. While it's not a "true" macro lens it does allow close focus up to about 1/3rd lifesize and the wide end is also going to be handy with the entire table.

Do put most of your energy towards a proper environment for the shoot with major emphasis on the lighting.

ziggy53

A couple more threads you should read and explore:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=75658
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=81713

coint

ziggy53 wrote:

A couple more threads you should read and explore:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=75658
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=81713

Thank you ziggy53. I'm into it.