Set for shooting in the studio: which camera and optics to choose | Articles | Photo, video, optics

It is almost always clear who and how to shoot in the stu­dio, what style of pho­to ses­sion is need­ed. And what tech­nique will help to real­ize the idea? There are many good pho­to­graph­ic equip­ment, but you need to take into account the specifics of work­ing in a stu­dio. We have select­ed for you bud­get and advanced cam­eras and optics for shoot­ing in an equipped room, and also told you what to look for when choos­ing dif­fer­ent lens mod­els.

Stu­dio shoot­ing requires a skill­ful choice of pho­to­graph­ic equip­ment from the pho­tog­ra­ph­er. Pho­to: pexels.com

cam­eras
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Nikon D850
CANON EOS 2000D EF‑S 18–55 III KIT
Optics
35 mm lens­es
Lens­es 50 mm
Lens­es 85mm
con­clu­sions

cameras

In the niche of com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­phy, SLR cam­eras remain lead­ers. Why mir­ror­less cam­eras are cho­sen less often and how they dif­fer — in this mate­r­i­al. Of course, this does not mean that mir­ror­less cam­eras are def­i­nite­ly worse. There­fore, if you are still on the side of mir­ror­less cam­eras, learn more about the mir­ror­less cam­eras that you can choose for shoot­ing. We opt­ed for DSLRs that will save you from com­pli­cat­ed retouch­ing after the fact, give you max­i­mum options and some­times save your bud­get.

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

Famil­iar design with pro­fes­sion­al grade fill­ing. Pho­to: canon.uz

Flag­ship 5D series cam­era with Dual Pix­el CMOS AF tech­nol­o­gy for fast phase focus­ing. Aut­o­fo­cus is flaw­less even in low light. It will turn out to adjust the bokeh (blur) for an advan­ta­geous com­po­si­tion.

Shot on the EOS 5D Mark IV from the set of the film “Gerasim”. Pho­to: ixbt.photo

Anoth­er tech­nol­o­gy — Dual Pix­el Raw — opens up the pos­si­bil­i­ty of point changes in the image after shoot­ing (set­ting the zone of max­i­mum sharp­ness). The cam­er­a’s 3.2‑inch LCD dis­play pro­vides bright and clear images in a vari­ety of shoot­ing sce­nar­ios. On the option­al touch screen, you can shift the focus point to bring out more details in a pho­to, or quick­ly switch between sec­tions. This saves time, which is not free in the stu­dio.

Fine tun­ing brings the pic­ture to per­fec­tion. Pho­to: f24.md

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV is pro­tect­ed from dust and mois­ture. The body, tra­di­tion­al for the 5D series, with pro­tru­sions and well-thought-out ergonom­ics is com­fort­able when work­ing: the grip is con­fi­dent, the grip is excel­lent.

Under­stand­ing all the selec­tors and con­trols is not easy. The cam­era is designed for an advanced user, its price will scare away novice pho­tog­ra­phers. But when com­bined with good optics, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV will be on any list of top solu­tions for stu­dio work.

Nikon D850

D850 — high speed and max­i­mum detail. Pho­to: olx.uz

The Nikon D850 is a full-frame DSLR with a tilt­ing LCD for easy mul­ti-angle pho­tog­ra­phy. Engi­neers have imple­ment­ed a fast focus­ing sys­tem with 153 points — you won’t have to choose for a long time. Silent Pho­tog­ra­phy mode opens the choice of silent shoot­ing in full res­o­lu­tion. Man­u­al focus can be con­ve­nient­ly rechecked in Focus Peak­ing mode.

Por­trait. Nikon D850, Voigt­lander Nok­ton 58 mm f/1.4 SL II S lens. Pho­to: onfotolife.com

The pride of the mod­el is a full-frame sen­sor of 46.89 mil­lion pix­els with excel­lent detail. Built-in noise reduc­tion at ISO 64–25600 keeps the lev­el of detail high in dif­fer­ent light­ing con­di­tions. The mod­el has no prob­lems with ergonom­ics and pro­tec­tion against dust and mois­ture: the device fits com­fort­ably in the hand and is not afraid of atmos­pher­ic influ­ences.

Nikon D850 with con­ve­nient aut­o­fo­cus is a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the clas­sic series. The cam­era is not lim­it­ed to the stu­dio pur­pose of the work. Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy, evening pho­to ses­sion, report­ing at events — Nikon D850 will cope with dif­fer­ent tasks.

CANON EOS 2000D EF‑S 18–55 III KIT

The EOS 2000D is a begin­ner’s kit with easy set­up. Pho­to: fotomagazin.by

CANON EOS 2000D EF‑S 18–55 III KIT is a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the class of inex­pen­sive DSLRs with a lens includ­ed. The con­cept of the mod­el is fast shoot­ing with­out com­pli­cat­ed set­tings. In terms of inter­ac­tion, CANON EOS 2000D resem­bles a smart­phone: the oper­a­tion is intu­itive, with­out immer­sion in sub­tleties. At the same time, the fin­ished pic­tures in terms of qual­i­ty (visu­al) are sat­u­rat­ed and detailed. Back­ground blur is pro­vid­ed for por­traits.

Facil­i­tate the work of novice pho­tog­ra­phers and Live View mode with tips. The auto-adjust­ment sys­tem saves the headache by leav­ing it up to the user to add fil­ters after shoot­ing.

Pho­to with blur. Shot with stock EF‑S 18–55mm f/3.5–5.6 IS lens. Pho­to: canon.ru

Through the viewfind­er, you can set the frame even when the cam­era is turned off, which saves bat­tery pow­er. EOS 2000D is equipped with a 3‑inch LCD dis­play, remote con­trol option. There are no sen­sors, but nav­i­ga­tion with the but­tons on the rear pan­el is not dif­fi­cult. A sim­ple log­i­cal scheme is built in the menu — the desired item is quick­ly found.

The com­plete zoom lens EF‑S 18–55mm f/3.5–5.6 IS is use­ful for shoot­ing out­doors, test shots, ama­teur pho­to­sets. For stu­dio work, it is bet­ter to buy optics sep­a­rate­ly. But the reg­u­lar lens will get almost free of charge and will serve as a nice bonus.

Light­weight, ver­sa­tile zoom lens for explor­ing the world of pho­tog­ra­phy. Pho­to: flickr.com

Optics

A good lens improves the qual­i­ty of your pho­tos. The cost of optics reach­es $2000–3000, but the most expen­sive one is not always the most suit­able one. It is nec­es­sary to take into account the con­di­tions and tasks of shoot­ing.

Zoom lenses

Zoom is con­ve­nient to work in dif­fer­ent inte­ri­ors, change the lay­out of the frame. Zoom shots are less artis­tic than fast primes, but they are more ver­sa­tile. Mod­els with a wide range of focal lengths allow you to shoot close-ups, shots in the inte­ri­or (por­traits) with­out chang­ing the lens. With zoom, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er is ready for any plot twist of the pho­to shoot.

For stu­dio shoot­ing, a zoom lens with a focal length range of 24–70 mm is con­ve­nient. A lens with a large aper­ture (max­i­mum aper­ture set­ting) is option­al. Peo­ple in the stu­dio are usu­al­ly pho­tographed with flash sources. They work at a select­ed point in time, like a flash. Pulsed light illu­mi­nates the sub­ject well, so shoot­ing is done at cov­ered aper­tures: f/5.6, f/6.3. If you are plan­ning a pho­to shoot in nat­ur­al light, you can choose a mod­el with a larg­er aper­ture (f / 1.8, f / 2.8).

Among the ver­sa­tile zoom lens­es used by famous Euro­pean pho­tog­ra­phers (Gia Besana, Feli­cia Sisko), the Canon 24–70mm f2.8L USM stands out.

The lens is suit­able for any EOS full-frame DSLR. Pho­to: blogdozack.com.br

The mod­el has high sharp­ness — the degree of detail of the frame. Pic­tures are obtained with­out noise, clear, not soapy. A lens with excel­lent col­or repro­duc­tion will make your pho­tos vivid and nat­ur­al. Adjust­ing focal lengths is use­ful, from wide-angle 24mm for pho­tos in a crowd­ed envi­ron­ment to por­trait 70mm. The lens is not cheap, but it is very con­ve­nient for vari­able stu­dio work.

The sec­ond, new ver­sion is also on sale — Canon EF 24–70mm f / 2.8L II USM.

Por­trait. Canon EF 24–70 f/2.8L II. Pho­to: cameralabs.org

Mod­el with increased light sen­si­tiv­i­ty for work even in low light con­di­tions. Fast and accu­rate focus­ing is pro­vid­ed by an ultra­son­ic dri­ve. Pro­fes­sion­als will appre­ci­ate the man­u­al focus adjust­ment func­tion. The main thing is that with all the abun­dance of tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions, the Canon EF 24–70mm f / 2.8L II USM is friend­ly to begin­ners.

35 mm lenses

The sec­ond group of lens­es for stu­dio work are fast mod­els of the “fix” class (with a fixed focal length). At wide aper­tures, when shoot­ing in stu­dios with nat­ur­al light, they pro­duce beau­ti­ful por­trait shots. An impor­tant selec­tion para­me­ter is the focal length.

It is com­fort­able to work with 35 mm lens­es: the dis­tance to a per­son is con­ve­nient, shoot­ing is relaxed. For close-up por­traits, it is bet­ter to choose 50mm or 85mm, but in oth­er sit­u­a­tions, 35mm is the basic option with a uni­ver­sal pur­pose.

Wide-angle Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM — sharp hand­held shots, low-light work in the stu­dio or at a wed­ding (a sep­a­rate selec­tion of lens­es for the solemn event — in the arti­cle). Almost instan­ta­neous aut­o­fo­cus and light weight — your hands won’t get tired, you won’t have to fid­dle with focus and waste time.

Canon EOS-1D X Mark II cam­era, Canon EF 35 mm f/2 IS USM lens. Pho­to: onfotolife.com

Sig­ma AF 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Nikon F is a fast lens for Nikon cam­eras. Japan­ese pro­duc­tion guar­an­tees a com­fort­able grip and dura­bil­i­ty with a min­i­mum weight (665 g). Aper­ture f / 1.4 — more bright­ness and clar­i­ty in low light, shoot­ing in dim­ly lit stu­dios. The opti­cal scheme suc­cess­ful­ly fights against aber­ra­tions (dis­tor­tions) and oth­er pho­to­graph­ic defects.

Lenses 50mm

The 50mm focal length is the key to beau­ti­ful stu­dio por­traits. The shots are bal­anced: the accents har­mo­nious­ly empha­size both the per­son and the envi­ron­ment (inte­ri­or). With a shal­low depth of field, the focus in the frame will be in front of the per­son­’s eyes. A slight blur of the face and back­ground at f/1.2 or f/2.0 will add a touch of col­or to the pho­to.

The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM is an inex­pen­sive mod­el for por­trait pho­tog­ra­phy with beau­ti­ful bokeh (blur). Aut­o­fo­cus works almost silent­ly, col­or repro­duc­tion is accu­rate. Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM pleas­es with good sharp­ness and almost pock­et size at 159g.

Nikon 50mm f / 1.8G AF‑S Nikkor is a fast lens for Nikon cam­eras with a low price. The qual­i­ty of blur­ring the back­ground is not infe­ri­or to the ana­logue for Canon. Adds artis­tic charm to New Year’s pho­to shoots. Absolute­ly silent aut­o­fo­cus and ver­sa­tile low-light per­for­mance.

The bokeh por­trait is crisp and nat­ur­al. Pho­to: fotosale.ua

Lenses 85mm

With an 85mm lens, per­fect por­trait shots are worth wait­ing for. But in a stu­dio envi­ron­ment, its use is lim­it­ed: due to the view­ing angle, it will be crowd­ed with a lens in a small room. Shoot­ing a full-length por­trait from a dis­tance of 4 meters is unnec­es­sary com­plex­i­ty. It is eas­i­er to choose the tra­di­tion­al 50 mm. But the 85 mm mod­el will show itself in very spa­cious stu­dios or out­doors.

The leg­endary Canon EF 85mm f1.8 is a clas­sic por­trait lens for any Canon EOS cam­era. Smooth adjust­ment of man­u­al focus with a ring, sim­ple hand­held shoot­ing in low light, very soft blur. With the Canon EF 85mm f1.8, even an unin­ter­est­ing back­ground turns into a beau­ti­ful back­drop.

Mod­el for Nikon equip­ment — Nikon 85mm f / 1.4G AF‑S Nikkor. The lens guar­an­tees no glare or ghost­ing, ele­gant and beau­ti­ful bokeh. You will have to pay more than 150,000 rubles for this mod­el, but it is includ­ed in the TOP lists of pro­fes­sion­al por­trait pho­tog­ra­phers.

Dis­tort­ed, expres­sive facial con­tours are the result of the EF 85 mm f/1.8. Pho­to: snapshot.canon-asia.com

conclusions

Stu­dio shoot­ing con­di­tions require a care­ful approach to the choice of pho­to­graph­ic equip­ment. Every­thing must be con­sid­ered: the size of the room, the light, the style and method of pho­tograph­ing, the fea­tures and pur­pose of the lens. A good cam­era and optics will not help you hone your shoot­ing tech­nique and find an approach to the mod­el. But only with them the result will be worth the effort invest­ed.

As of May 2022, a set of cam­eras and optics for semi-pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­phy will cost an aver­age of 250–300 thou­sand rubles. But these are not stan­dard num­bers. When work­ing with a closed aper­ture, you can buy a sim­pler lens for stu­dio shoot­ing and save mon­ey.