Newborn Photographer Lenses

A question I am asked frequently by both clients and photographers alike is what equipment I am using. This is a multifaceted question as we have a variety of camera bodies, lenses, strobes and light modifiers. Today I’m going to focus on what’s in my camera bag and the essential newborn photographer lenses.

As photographers we have many choices we make regarding the equipment we purchase. Canon or Nikon. Quality versus price. Zoom versus prime lenses. Personally, I am a Canon girl. Love, love, love all of my Canon products. I have two Canon camera bodies and several lenses. I also tend to focus on quality over price. I always want to be able to create the best images I can for clients and therefore make sure I am shooting with the very best equipment. I also am a prime lens fan. You just can’t beat the clarity of an L series prime lens. So let’s take a look at the lenses I use and how I use them.

Canon 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye

This wide angle fisheye lens is a recent new addition to our studio. It is amazing for capturing dramatic and scenic outdoor images. We have big plans for how to use this lens for our maternity and family sessions. This is our only non-prime lens and we are loving playing with it.

A photo in use with the fisheye lens of our cute studio.

Sigma Art35mm f/1.4

The Sigma Art 35mm is our workhorse lens during newborn sessions. We use if during about 90% of a newborn photography session. We love the sharpness as well as the ability to capture the larger scenes we are best known for creating for our clients. This is our only non-Canon lens as well and we just can’t say enough good things about it.

Canon 50mm f/1.2 L series

The Canon 50mm is the iconic “nifty-fifty” that just about every photographer likes to have in their bag. We recently upgraded from the 1.4 to the 1.2 L series lens and holy guacamole it is awesome! We love the beautiful bokeh we get with less distortion than the 35mm. We plan to use this for many of our in studio family images.

Canon 85mm f/1.2 L series

The Canon 85mm L series lens is an incredible and versatile lens. We love using this lens for all sorts of sessions. We occasionally use it for certain newborn images when we are trying to get tight on a backdrop. We use it often for milestone sessions for the same reason. And we love using it in studio for maternity sessions as it doesn’t have the distortion of the wider lenses and is beautifully sharp.

Canon 100mm f/2.8 L series

The Canon 100mm L series lens can be used as a portrait or macro lens. We primarily use it in studio for our adorable macro images. These are those close-up detail shots of your baby’s adorable features that you just never want to forget.

Canon 135mm f/2 L series

The Canon 135mm L series lens has been one of our favorite lenses for years. If we are shooting outdoors we likely have this lens on our camera almost exclusively and shoot with it wide open at 2.0. You can’t beat the clarity and the beautiful bokeh it creates in the background. We use this for all of our outdoor maternity, family and milestone sessions. It is absolutely dreamy.  That wraps up our list of our top newborn photographer lenses (at least for now until we get another one!). Feel free to ask questions about any of our lenses or other equipment. You can reach us through our contact form here.