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Lens recommendation

scho

Well-known member
My daughter is a working artist (painter, mixed media) in Atlanta and needs to photograph some of her paintings for a website and for clients. She has a Nikon D5200 with 18-55 kit lens but she says it is soft. I would like to get her a better lens that she can use with her 5200. Thinking of a normal/wide zoom that would allow framing in limited space (studio) for 2 ft to 8 ft wide paintings. Needs to have good flat field performance. Suggestions would be appreciated.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Good flat field performance and zoom do not go together. Your best be is probably something like an 85 PC-E or the 105 macro.
 

segedi

Member
The lenses Jack recommended will be too long for a small studio space. I've not found a good solution with wide angle without some work in post. That said, the voigtlander 28mm is fairly good in this regard, but stl might not be wide enough on a cropped sensor. Might want to see how the Rokinon wides perform. It is super important to have the painting and the lens completely parallel and aligned to avoid keystoning, etc.
 

scho

Well-known member
Thank you Jack and Segedi for your advice. I was afraid that there might not be any good zoom candidates, but a wide PC-E might work. I forgot that I still have a Samyang TS lens in Nikon mount that I could bring down to Atlanta for her to try when I visit next month. I'll also have a chance to see how much room she has in her studio to better evaluate focal length choice.
 

DDudenbostel

Active member
My wife is a full time artist/painter and I use my 50 f3.5 micro Nikkor on my D800 for hers but that's full frame. I've also used my 24-70 f2.8 Nikkor and had excellent results. It might require a bit of distortion correction but that's easy. I always shoot raw with a color checker on the side and apply a correct profile for color correctness in Lightroom. It works quite well.
 

scho

Well-known member
My wife is a full time artist/painter and I use my 50 f3.5 micro Nikkor on my D800 for hers but that's full frame. I've also used my 24-70 f2.8 Nikkor and had excellent results. It might require a bit of distortion correction but that's easy. I always shoot raw with a color checker on the side and apply a correct profile for color correctness in Lightroom. It works quite well.
Thank you for the tips that I will pass along to my daughter.
 

Swissblad

Well-known member
The Nikkor 40mm Micro is a budget macro for DX cameras, like the 5200 mentioned.
For web use it should be more than adequate.
Else the Nikkor 60mm micro is an excellent lens.
 

scho

Well-known member
The Nikkor 40mm Micro is a budget macro for DX cameras, like the 5200 mentioned.
For web use it should be more than adequate.
Else the Nikkor 60mm micro is an excellent lens.
Thanks Swissblad, sounds like a good option.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
There's also the very good, unfortunately discontinued, Tokina 35mm f/2.8 macro. You can easily find it for around $200 second hand.
 
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