Best Lens For This Situation

[Rudbeckia]

Hi Sony Folks,

I am trying to photograph plant specimens in a light box. The plants range in size from about 24" to around 60". I need to photograph the full plant and also zoom in shots of different parts of the plant.  I am using a Sony A7. Is there one all around good lens you would recommend for this situation? I am getting better at understanding the camera, but have not purchased a lens yet so a beginner for sure.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Pieter]

What lens do you currently use on your A7? If it's the 28-70 kit lens or some other zoom, see what focal length works well for the work you do. It's hard for us to tell which lens to get if we don't know the distance at which you're photographing your plants. Also, what detail level do you need in the close-up shots? Like macro-close up (leaf colouring / texture as detailed as possible) or more like a branch enlargement or so?

The Sony 90mm f/2.8 macro (fairly expensive) may be interesting for you, but then again 90mm focal length may be too tight for your working space: you might not get the full plant in the frame. In this case the Sigma 70 mm macro (cheaper) might work for you, or even the Sony 50 mm macro (fairly inexpensive). Again: determine what focal length works for you first for the full plant shots, then decide if you need macro working distance for the close up shots.

[Rudbeckia]

Thanks Pieter

Yes I'm using the kit lens that came with the camera. The larger plants I have to stand back a good bit to get the whole plant in the view.

 

Can the second two macro lenses you mentioned achieve both a good shot zoomed out and zoomed in? Meaning I would only need 1 lense for both the whole plant and say the leaf? Or are you suggesting two lenses ,one for full plant and one for plant parts

Sorry for the newbie questions!

 

 

[Rudbeckia]

Also any thoughts on this lens?

sony fe 55mm 1.8

[Pieter]

None of the lenses I mentioned (and the 55 1.8) can zoom, but I suppose you ment 'focussed at normal distance and at close distance'. All lenses should work well at both focussing distances but you might want to read some more reviews. The 55mm is a great lens but can't do macro photography. If you have to stand back with the 28-70 lens at 28mm then none of these lenses will work well for you though as the framing will be too tight.

What shortcomings do you experience with the kit zoom lens? If you're shooting in a light box then the relatively small aperture of that lens shouldn't matter much.

[Pieter]

The 55mm is much more suited for general photography than the 50mm macro though. I wouldn't consider the 50mm macro for general purposes as it's a bit noisy and slow to focus and has a relatively small aperture for a prime.

[Rudbeckia]

Thanks so much!
Yes I meant focus at normal.distance and focus at close distance.

 

The kit lens at normal distance just doesn't seem like a very crisp photo......but problem could be person behind the camera and not the lens

 

[Rudbeckia]

This is just a screen shot, but at normal distance I lose some of the details of the plant with the kit lens

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[Rudbeckia]

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[Pieter]

From what I can see on these screenshots it seems pretty soft at the edges indeed. Can you post aperture/iso/shutter speed values? Also make sure that your camera is perpendicular to your subject if you shoot with a large aperture, so that the entire subject is within the depth of field. Shooting from a tripod helps as well, though it doesn't seem like motion blur to me.

Try your kit zoom at 50 mm and 70 mm for a bit and see if that working distance works for you. I understand the specimens are lying flat and you're shooting top-down? This obviously limits working distance so anything over 50-55 mm focal length may indeed be too narrow for you.

Pretty much any prime will give you better results than the kit zoom though. If you need a cheap and sharp wide angle, try the 28mm f/2. That one doesn't do macro photography but that may not be required for your purposes. Focusses down to 29 cm / 11 inch.

[Rudbeckia]

Thanks again!
The plants are hanging so not taking looking down but straight on
These were 1/40  f18 iso500.......but again I'm a newbie, so still just trying different settings to learn

 

I will try your suggestions!

 

[Pieter]

A small aperture such as f/18 may cause some unsharpness due to diffraction of light, but it is a homogenious unsharpness throughout the entire frame. Your photos somehow look more unsharp at the top.

For macro, use f/11 - f/16. From f/16 on images will generally be a bit blurry. If you really need more depth of field, try to find some software that can do 'focus stacking'.

When not shooting in macro-range an aperture of f/8 should usually give plenty depth of field and will result in a sharper image due to less diffraction. Your fullframe camera should be able to cope well with iso 500 but you could drop it to 200. This will give you a shutter speed of 1/80, which should be plenty fast for handheld shooting of still objects. All these factors should increase your sharpness.

[Rudbeckia]

Thanks so much for all of the tips!