Beginner Single lens for most work.

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shimeld

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Paul
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Hi.
I have a Sony A6000 and receiving an Olympus Pen e-pl7 tomorrow.

I shoot pictures of products in my work as an eBay lister for a charity. The work involves shooting cameras one minute and earrings and rings the next. This of course requires frequent lens changes which at the rate I'm doing it, must eventually take a toll on the mount, and it slows me down.

Is there a lens that works like a compact camera, removing the need for lens changes.

Thanks in advance.
 
Are you shooting under controlled lighting conditions using a tripod or just grabbing snaps in poor light? What's the budget available?

Olympus, Tamron and Panasonic all make superzooms (14-140mm) lenses that would cover all you need for anything in M43 mount. A better quality solution would be one of the professional 12-35 etc f2.8 aperture zooms. Or if you've got 2 cameras now, fit a longer lens to one and a shorter lens to the other and just float between cameras.
 
Hi.
Thanks for the advice. Good point about using two cameras however I will be selling the Sony if the Olympus works out better.

I use two fixed brightness led adjustable position side panels, and and an overhead variable brightness and colour led panel. Plus I use reflector cards.

The camera is mounted on a tripod and I use a separate electronic fill flash speedlight when required.

Thanks again.
 
The Olympus 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 EZ is a decent lens that can be bought for about £100 on eBay/MPB.

It even has a special fixed Macro mode, so if you're shooting small objects that will help with that too.
 
You have not said what lens you have with the Sony. I would also consider whether there are other types of photography you wish to pursue as well as this product photography.

I also shoot the odd item by setting in up in natural light but preferable an overcast sky with the light from the North. Certainly good for paintings.

Dave
 
I have a couple of Sony A6XXX and can highly recommend the SEL18 135 for pretty much all situations:

A good range of zoom and a relatively good minimum focus range, too.

The SEL 18-105 has a power zoom so is a good alternative if you're interested in video.

The 1655G is a fabulous lens (with a fabulous price) - less zoom range but a step up in quality over the longer zooms, and a wider aperture for lower light situations.

A super cheap option is the original 1650 kit lens which is decent enough and available for less than £80 second hand.
 
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shimeld said:
Is there a lens that works like a compact camera, removing the need for lens changes.
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To be Irish for a moment: "if I wanted to get there I wouldn't start from here". I can think of two approaches that would solve your problem, one cheap and the other more expensive.

The cheap one is to look for a bridge camera: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_camera. As you're working for a charity, keep an eye on the stock coming through. I bought an unloved Fuji SL300 from a local charity shop for £5. Once I found a new battery and charger for £12 I had a camera that can do exactly what you seem to want...

Fuji SL300 camera E-PL5 P6160002.JPG

The dearer solution is to buy an old full frame camera like the original Canon 5D and fit it with a 50mm macro lens: https://www.borrowlenses.com/blog/what-is-a-macro-lens/

The 5D is your best bet because it's now relatively cheap and it can use most full frame lenses via cheap adapters. Other choices are available.

It would be possible to use a macro lens on either of the cameras you mentioned but the macro lenses for those two cameras are currently expensive and using an adapted macro lens from full frame cameras would limit your angle of view, which might be OK if you have plenty of space in which to work.
 
Hi.

Thanks for that.

I have tried bridge cameras before and wasn't too happy with the results. I must admit that it was a few years ago and at that time I was not as savvy about lighting importance. I think it was a Canon. Furthermore, I have a Canon PowerShot SX700 HS that I bought, and I'm not too happy with the final results.

Besides, I will eventually leave my job to retire and go self-employed for a while, so I buy all my own cameras and cost is not the major issue within reason. I buy used equipment to save cost anyway.

I have purchased a few lenses for the Sony A6000 though I have not explored the full potential of them yet.

Kind regards
 
It seems a bit strange to go from an APS-C Sony A6000 to a Micro Four Thirds Olympus Pen as the Sony would usually be accepted to be the camera giving the best image quality, if only marginally, as it has a larger sensor than the MFT camera.

I'd recommend keeping the Sony and going for a close focusing lens as this will come in handy when trying to fill the frame with smaller desk top things, maybe a 50mm macro if all you are going to take pictures of is relatively small things for evil bay.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
The dearer solution is to buy an old full frame camera like the original Canon 5D and fit it with a 50mm macro lens: https://www.borrowlenses.com/blog/what-is-a-macro-lens/

The 5D is your best bet because it's now relatively cheap and it can use most full frame lenses via cheap adapters. Other choices are available.

It would be possible to use a macro lens on either of the cameras you mentioned but the macro lenses for those two cameras are currently expensive and using an adapted macro lens from full frame cameras would limit your angle of view, which might be OK if you have plenty of space in which to work.
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If he buys a 5D he'll be posting about spots on his pictures the next day.
 
Hi.

The 5D is bulky, so I have got used to the compact mirrorless compact style. I started with a NEX 5 in this category and then moved to a NEX 6, eventually ending with the A6000.

I'm working from home at the moment and space is limited to about 8ft x 5 ft, what I call a desktop studio. Great natural light on a morning and switch to artificial in the afternoon.

The APS-C sensor seems to do well most of the time. As I said before, switching lenses all the time risks premature wear and eats up a small amount of time, since the items I list are of varying types I have to research them, so any time saving is welcome.

I thought I might try the OLYMPUS because it's better than a mobile phone quality and still remains a semi-professional camera that offers flexibility. If I do need to change lenses for my own work, then lenses for these are plenty, especially since the Panasonic lenses also fit. I'll sit down tonight and try to master the strange and infamous menu system. The cameras' menu system can be set up to be more user-friendly.

Kind regards.
 
If you've bought the Oly Pen then it's really too late to give alternatives. I personally would go for the A6000 if I could live with the ergonomics. If going for a MFT camera with the EVF in the corner like the Pen I'd have recommended the Panasonic GX9 or GX80 which will give comparable image quality to the Pen as they're all MFT cameras too but will probably be cheaper, especially the GX80 which is often if you shop around a bit of a bargain.
 
I have an A6600 and might be able to advise on lenses, if you let us know what lenses you have for your Sony. I certainly get high quality images with my A6600 and I generally use just two Sony lenses. The 18-135mm and the 70-350mm. I can cover most landscape, Architecture, portraits and general photography with the first of these lenses and wildlife and sports with the other. I also have a Canon 5D4 (with various lenses) which can perform slightly better but I find too heavy.

Dave
 
I concur with Dave Canon about bulkiness.

I have a kit 16-50 lens, using ring extenders and these are starting to grate when attached to the camera, though they are cheap ones from Amazon. Furthermore, I also have a fully manual 7 Artisans macro lens, an Olympus ZUIKO MCAuto-T f-135 mm zoom lens with adapter ring to fit E-mount.
 
shimeld said:
Hi.
Thanks for the advice. Good point about using two cameras however I will be selling the Sony if the Olympus works out better.

I use two fixed brightness led adjustable position side panels, and and an overhead variable brightness and colour led panel. Plus I use reflector cards.

The camera is mounted on a tripod and I use a separate electronic fill flash speedlight when required.

Thanks again.
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A bridge camera with a fairly decent zoom lens should be fine for this purpose. The trick here (for speed and convenience) is to position the camera at a distance and angle that's right for your largest items with the zoom set to something around 1.5x standard (so about 75mm equivalent) and then zoom longer for smaller items, always filling the frame as far as possible to avoid the image quality loss that will be caused by excessive cropping. A full-frame camera would, in theory, produce better IQ but there would be far less depth of field.

But, and especially with small-sensor cameras, there will be a substantial loss of image quality unless everything else is right too, and your lighting arrangement is poor. These lights simply don't have enough power and I'm guessing that you will have your camera set to a fairly high ISO, and/or a fairly slow shutter speed and/or a fairly large lens aperture, all of which will cause problems.

This is easily cured by using studio flash instead.
 
Hi Garry.

Thanks for your advice. It does all make sense, of course, and I will purchase a bridge camera next week when payday comes along.


As far as lighting goes, a full size studio speedlight/flash is a bit too pricey at the moment unless I can pick one up on eBay.

Examples done this morning. eBay and such sites advise that we use white background to improve web search results. I do use small fill lights, led torch and small white reflector cards to bounce light. As well as black card to absorb excess light. I use a variable rose tint LED fill light from above to bring out as much gold tone in gold items. Click on the 'Examples' link below:

Examples

The examples are unedited jpegs. I use eBay's basic editing tools to speed things up.

Kind regards.
 
Speedlights/flashguns ARE expensive, simple studio flash is far better value for money as well as being far more suitable for this type of work. For example (other brands are also available) https://www.lencarta.com/lencarta-smartflash-4

Your example shots are pretty good. Short of quite a lot of avoidable editing work, or cutting the products out of the background in post-production using clipping paths (which would involve Photoshop or similar and a lot of time) there's nothing much you can do to get the backgrounds actually white, but there's a lot that you could do with larger items when using studio flash, because with separation from the background you will easily be able to get the background white. I do have an e-book on product photography, it's available free to longer-established members but I'm afraid you'd have to buy it and spend a whole fiver . . . Product Photography Magic on Amazon.

Or, if you have specific questions that I can help with, just ask on this or on the Lighting Forum.
 
Hi Garry.

Thanks for the help. I think I'll take up on the example product you sent or a similar one.

Any post editing is out simply due to the speed aspect. I will splash out on your e-book if you can send me the link.

Kind regards.
 
I'm not allowed to advertise on here, but if someone else was to post instead of me they'd point you to https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07PM95HZM.

When you've read it and posted a review, let me know and I'll send the .pdf version
 
Thanks, Garry.

I actually found it on Amazon before you responded and bought it. It looks great.

Kind regards.
 
shimeld said:
Thanks, Garry.

I actually found it on Amazon before you responded and bought it. It looks great.

Kind regards.
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I'm glad you're happy, 55+ years of pro work went into it . . .

It's better as a pdf so, as I said earlier, let me know when you've posted a review and I'll send you the pdf. Meanwhile, if you have any queries not covered by my book, just ask.
 
Hi.

I have finally decided on a solution to my situation.

One responder suggested using a second Sony A6000 with a macro lens fitted, however I decided on buying a NEX C3 and have ordered a brand new Sony 30mm f/3.5 macro lens to go with it.

The camera was about £59 and lens £185. I will switch between cameras and group the shots into one folder for each subject when uploading.

I'm going to get rid of the Olympus PEN E-pl7. I've had great photos from this camera but it's not compatible with my flash unit and live feed to and external monitor is not possible.

I hope this works out.

Thanks to all of you. Let me know your thoughts.
 
So the Song f3.5 has arrived and I have been very surprised by the image quality. As a 1-1 ma for lens it operates with auto focus well, and as an all round lens you can take shots at 3 to 5 feet away with good quality and clarity.

The Boca is good too if you set the camera to f5 or so.

There is no built in stabilization so it's not ideal for video shoots on all but the best cameras.

It's an E-mount lens so works with all NEX series and A6000 and up series.

All in all I can highly recommend it for a budget friendly lens for a situation like mine.
 
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