Many people ask the same question over and over again regarding product and food photography. “What is the best lens for food and product photos?” Well, the answer is simple…
This is the Canon 100mm F/2.8 Macro L lens. While this lens is technically designed for shooting macro images it is well known as one of the best lenses for food and product photography. It’s even a great portrait lens! Coming in at 1.38 lb (625 g) and measuring 3.06 x 4.84″ (77.7 x 123 mm) while this lens is a tad heavy, it won’t be taking up much space in your camera bag.
One of the downsides that this lens has would be that while it is a “macro” lens, you won’t be getting microscope esque images you can get pretty close to your subject and at 100mm you can shoot some very nice detail shots as the images I shot below of the coffee beans. As it is a 100mm lens, you can get some very nice background separation as seen in the example image below of the chocolate cappuccino.

Another great example is this product photo of a Budweiser Beer bottle cap. You will be able to see the amazing sharpness that this lens provides in the edges of the bottle cap and even the patterns in the ice. Personally I find that the sharpness that this lens gives me makes this one of my favorites Canon EF lenses.

As previously mentioned, The Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro lens is also fantastic for portraits. While it’s not the widest aperture lens out there it is super sharp for portraits and does render some great looking bokeh depending on your background such as in the examples below:

I also always like to have this lens handy for my on-location “studio” headshots and business portraits. While I normally shoot all my on-location headshots and business portraits with my Tamron 70-200mm F/2.8 G2 lens, there are times when the provided space in some of my client’s offices just isn’t big enough to use that lens so I like having the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro as a backup for those tight situations but that lets me get the professional results I need.

Feel ready to buy this lens? I’ll leave an Amazon link below so you can grab it today!
-Some of the links here in this article are affiliate links. By using these links to make purchases on Amazon you can help support this blog.
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