One of the biggest investments you'll make when you start building your Photography gear will be your lens collection rather than the camera itself.
This is why it's important to get a lens that is best suited for the type of Photography you do, and if you are planning to shoot lots of Food, then you probably want this lens in your bag, not only will it give you beautiful photos, it's so versatile and will help you translate your creative vision effectively, in my opinion it's the best lens for Food Photography, personally it's my favourite!
The lens I am talking about is Canon's 100mm f/2.8 Macro (There is an L version as well) - If you shoot Nikon an equivalent lens is (NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8).
What I love the most about this lens is that you can capture both, the big picture by taking few steps back, as well as the smallest details by getting a little closer, allow me to demonstrate:
In this Shot I am setting the scene for my hero "The Baklava Cupcake" by showing context; the table, setup and some other food in the background.
Whereas in this shot, the Baklava cupcake takes center stage, what I did is change my camera angle from 30 degrees to straight up and got a little closer while still showing pretty much the same elements from the previous picture. I love the compression the 100mm f/2.8 gives me as well as the beautiful shallow depth of field (a blurry background):
As usual, I like to make the best out of my food while it still looks fresh and take as many shots as I possibly can and I love how close I can get with my Canon's 100mm f/2.8 to the subject and reveal the tiniest of details:
Of course I had to play more with my Baklava cupcake and dress it up a little which tells another story without changing a thing about my setup or camera settings:
Buying quality lenses is a worthy investment if you are serious about making money with your photography, and if you are not sure whether the 100mm f/2.8 is the lens for you, I recommend you borrow it and experiment with it to see if you actually like it yourself, because that's exactly what I did, in fact I borrowed the lens first and then bought it (second hand) which saved me some cash!
One important thing to note is whether you own a full frame or a crop sensor camera (referring to the size of the camera sensor), because then you'd have to count in the crop factor (1.6 for Canon - 1.5 for Nikon) which means, the focal length of 100mm on a full frame is 100mm but on a cropped sensor it's actually 160mm (you'll have to step further back to get everything you want in the shot) - If you have no idea what I am talking about, please feel free to let me know in the comments and I'll talk about this in depth :)
Well, now it's your turn, what lens do you love using the most, and would you consider buying/renting the 100mm f/2.8? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to eat that awesome looking Baklava cupcake :)
See you next week!
Love, Maha
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