Good things come in 3’s

Product photography is something that I haven’t really done before, despite being still life there’s plenty of room for creativity.  You can play around with the lighting, the arrangement of the objects, the background/backdrop and even camera angles. 

I had 2 energy efficient light bulbs on left and right of the picture, softened with white semi-transparent sheets.  The background was created with a black piece fabric.  Photo taken with an EOS 500D and the standard EF-S 18-55mm IS lens as I didn’t have the 50D with me today.  Fortunately I did have access to these 3 lenses, which was what inspired me to attempt this shot. 



Starting from the left we have the EF 16-35mm f2.8L MKII.  Great lens, extremely wide on a full frame body, and the fast aperture makes it a great lens for both photojournalists and enthusiasts alike. 

In the middle is the oft forgotten EF 24-70mm f2.8L.  It’s a mystery to me why this lens doesn’t really come up in conversations.  Everybody talks about the 16-35, the 24-105, and the great canon primes, but this tends to be forgotten.  In the short amount of time that I had to play around with this lens, it’s a fantastic piece of glass, has rock solid build, and a monster of a hood.  Construction of its lens elements is quite unique, you can see in the image that the lens is at minimum length at 70mm, and the barrel extends as you zoom out … making this mechanism the opposite of all other canon lenses.  This also explains the ridiculously large lens hood, which I think looks great by the way.

Finally, on the right we have the popular EF 17-40 f4L.  Construction and build is very similar to the 16-35mm, and the only real difference between the 2 is that the 17-40 is smaller and has a slower aperture.  This is definitely a lens for the landscape shooter, extremely sharp, strong build, fairly versatile in terms of focal length as well.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the 16-35mm, but the 17-40 is about $1000 AUD cheaper while producing an image quality very similar to that of the 16-35. 

I strongly recommend the 24-70 for full frame users, but if you’re a full frame user you don’t need me to tell you that.  For the landscape enthusiast, go for the 16-35 if you can, but if you’re on a budget get the 17-40 and spend the rest of the money on filters :)

Surprisingly, product photography was quite enjoyable so I might have to look further into it.  Like I said in previous posts though, there’s plenty more to come.