Years ago I did alot of flat art copy and used the EF 50/2.5 macro with excellent results...no distrotion (at least that I could notice), very flat plane-of-focus and optically very sharp. Has the added benefit of being inexpensive too.
I use the 50 Macro for repro. Even done high rez repro work, since it is flat field, you can stitch, say, four photos of a painting together for even more resolution, if needed.
having also worked with just a 50/1.8 MKI, which was perfectly fine for magazine reproduction, I can say that more than the lens is the lighting and color correction...
The main concern is having a lens that provides as flat a field as possible, so most macro lenses are a good choice.
More important than the lens itself is all the other stuff:
- perfect color balance
- artwork parallel to the sensor so that there is no perspective distortion
- lighting that is even across the artwork and isn't giving any specular highlights, especially on the brush strokes.
I like my 24-105 for this in every respect except its pronounced barrel distortion toward the wider end of its range. And using a zoom is very convenient for copy work (but not as convenient as not having to correct the barrel distortion would be).
Nill, you may not want a long lens unless you are sure you will have the necessary shooting distance to work with, but they generally have the least distortion. In fact, the available shooting distance might force you to use a shorter lens than you would like to.
If the artwork is shiny or has a glass cover then you may find a TS-E lens very helpful to eliminate your own reflection. Add a CPL filter to eliminate other reflections. The TS-E would also be helpful if the artwork is just too big for you to have the camera perpendicular to the artwork from its centre.
Ken-In_VA wrote:
The main concern is having a lens that provides as flat a field as possible, so most macro lenses are a good choice.
More important than the lens itself is all the other stuff:
- perfect color balance
- artwork parallel to the sensor so that there is no perspective distortion
- lighting that is even across the artwork and isn't giving any specular highlights, especially on the brush strokes.
+1000
Also, polarizers on both the lighting and lens, color chart visible in the photo, everything color managed and use the largest colorspace you can be bothered to work in (ProPhoto, ProStar, eci RGB, ect.)
You can take it even furthur by getting PhotoAcute Studio and combining 4+ frames taken in succession to boost detail & resolution into the stratosphere. Turns my 5D2 into an 84MP camera.
