The Best Lens For Food Photography

What is the best lens for food photography? The answer for me is simple. However, everyone has a different style and a different story to tell.

I mainly use 4 lenses to photograph food, but have a great deal more for video and travel.

However, no matter your budget or your skill level, the lens you should seriously consider for food photography is the Canon 100mm f2.8L Macro Lens (or some variation of it). 

My Pick: THE BEST LENS FOR FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY

When I’m looking at a lens for food photography, I’m mostly interested in utility. My go to lenses are the Canon 100mm f2.8L Macro and the Canon 50mm f1.2L. Both are prime lenses and both serve a specific purpose in my artistic workflow.

If you want to know more about all the gear that I use for food photography check out this guide!

Getting Close Up With The Best Macro Lens For Canon

Most might think when they see the word “macro” on a lens, it means that it can only really be good for one purpose, but that’s simply not true.

What I love about the 100mm Macro is just how versatile it is. The 100mm macro lens is as great when shooting backed off or for flat lay food photos, as it is when that story calls for an extreme close up. 

When your story calls for water drops on beautiful heirloom tomatoes or the glisten off a guac burger, the 100mm is the best lens to the job done. Making those yummy details in your food photography larger than life.

Using A Macro Lens For Food Photography That Tells Wider Stories

With the inherent sharpness and natural compression, the 100mm lens creates a 3D effect that makes your food pop out of the scene! 

Canon 100mm f2.8L IS Macro Lens | Shot @ f4 1/160 ISO100

When the camera is placed in front of the food, I shoot most of my images at an aperture of f4 or above when using this lens.

Although, the 100mm opens up to an aperture of f2.8, the compression in telephoto lenses like this, add extra blur.

Personally, I like to have the majority of my food in focus and this extra bokeh, can be a bit too heavy for most subjects. 

However, the compression can also be a big help by making food photography composition easy.  

The 24-70mm and the 50mm lens are some of my favorite lenses for food, but when compared with the 100mm you can see the composition tighten up.

The Canon 100mm lens highlights the food by bringing the background props closer to the bacon guac burger and eliminating any unwanted negative space. 

The Best Lens For Food Photography Is Also The Best Video Lens

If you want to see the best food photography lens in action, check out the video below. 

With the exception of the shots that include some silly food photographer talking, every other clip and image in this video was shot using the Cano​​n 100mm f2.8L Macro Lens. 

With the ability to dive right into your story, the 100mm lens makes for outstanding videos.  

For the same reason that it’s the best lens for food photography, this lens is almost always on my camera when I’m shooting b-roll for my food videos.

If you using this macro lens for video, be sure to click on that image stabilization.

Wider lenses like the 24mm, don't really need image stabilization, but because the 100mm is a telephoto lens, the slightest breath on this macro lens will introduce shake.

The image stabilization of the Canon 100mm f2.8L Macro lens is great for hand-held shots and the tight focus allows for some unique camera angles.

You can get really close and see all those amazing details or back it off a bit and enjoy the buttery bokeh, either way the 100mm gives a vastly different look then the normal lenses I use for food videos.

Overall, the 100mm macro lens has everything a food photographer needs. It’s incredibly sharp, has great depth of field with the added compression, and works for both extremely close up or wider stories.

On top of all that, it will give you some unique angles that are sure to spice up your videos. So for me the, I can confidently say 100mm Macro is the best lens for food photography.