A professional photographer, I’ve put dozens of hours of research into this guide to the best lenses for food photography. I’ve used many of the lenses personally. For those that I haven’t, I reached out to fellow professionals and friends for their expert opinions.
Whether you want budget beginner lenses or the best professional lenses, I’ve got the best recommendations for you. Doesn’t matter if you work with Nikon, Canon, Sony, or any other brand, I’ve got you covered!
Best Beginner Lens for Food Photography
A 24-70mm zoom lens is hands-down the best option for someone just starting food photography.
The only exception is if you have a huge budget to buy a multi-lens setup right out of the gate. In that case, you might want to jump to our 3-lens setups. Those kits may phase out your 24-70mm for food photography, depending on your preferences.
That said, I don’t know a single accomplished photographer who doesn’t own some version of this lens.
The 24-70mm zoom lens is the all-around choice because of its versatility. You can switch from tripod dish shots to in-kitchen chef portraits and back to an overhead shot.
It almost covers the entire focal range of our recommended 3-lens food photography sets. Any talented food photographer can do excellent work using this lens alone.
Why 24-70mm Is The Best All-Around Food Photography Lens
Not only is the 24-70mm the best beginner lens for food stories, it’s also the best all-around lens. Check out my reasons why!
1. Flexibility in Composition
The 24-70mm focal range offers a sweet spot between wide-angle and telephoto capabilities, providing food photographers with ample flexibility in composing their shots.
At 24mm, you can capture expansive scenes, such as beautifully set tables or restaurant interiors, setting the context for your culinary story.
As you zoom into the mid-range, you can focus on individual dishes, highlighting their textures, colors, and intricate details. This versatility allows you to capture both the big picture and the finer nuances of your subject.
2. Ideal for Environmental Portraits
Food is often enjoyed in vibrant settings, surrounded by people, decor, and ambiance.
A 24-70mm lens excels at capturing these environmental portraits, allowing you to incorporate elements such as chefs, diners, or bustling kitchen scenes into your composition.
3. Optimal Depth of Field Control
While prime lenses are celebrated for their wide apertures, the 24-70mm zoom lens is no slouch when it comes to depth of field control.
With apertures ranging from f/2.8 to f/4, depending on the model, these lenses offer sufficient flexibility to achieve creamy bokeh and selective focus effects.
4. Practicality and Portability
If you’ve ever lugged around 4 lenses on 2 camera bodies plus the rest of your equipment, you know how light and free it feels to shoot with a single lens.
5. Multi-Genre Photography
Another great benefit of this lens is that it works for so many genres besides food photography. That includes travel, weddings, portraits, and even landscape photography.
6. Durability
More than other lenses, a 24-70mm zoom lens typically has more durable construction. They are often weather sealed and can take more wear and tear.
Best All-Around Food Photography Lenses (By Brand)
It’s important to note that the first set of options are for people who know they are into photography. If you may lose interest in a few months, do not waste your money on these products.
For those who love photography, this lens is one of the absolute best areas to invest in the highest quality equipment you can afford.
Sample Photos
Best 24-70mm Zoom Lenses (Comparison Table)
If the options below are out of your price range, just scroll a bit further for my affordable alternatives.
Alternatively, click “Check for Deals” to find reputable Refurbished and Renewed options. These are often a fraction of the new price.
| Brand | Lens Model | Image Stabilization | Macro Capability | Check for Deals |
| Best All-Around Canon Lens for Food Photography | Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM | Yes | No | Check for Deals |
| Best All-Around Nikon Lens for Food Photography | Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8E ED VR | Yes | No | Check for Deals |
| Best All-Around Sony Lens for Food Photography | Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM | Yes | No | Check for Deals |
| Best All-Around Sigma Lens for Food Photography | Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM | Yes | Yes | Check for Deals |
| Best Olympus Lens for Food Photography Beginners | Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO | Yes | No | Check for Deals |
| Best Panasonic Lens for Food Photography Beginners | Panasonic Lumix S PRO 24-70mm f/2.8 | Yes | No | Check for Deals |
| Best Fujifilm Lens for Food Photography Beginners | Fujifilm XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR | No | No | Check for Deals |
Of all the lens versions I recommend here, pay special attention to the highly-praised Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8. It comes at a fantastic price point compared to first-party lens competitors and includes macro capability.
If I were a budget-conscious food photography beginner, I would get a refurbished version of that lens. It’s a huge sweet spot in terms of value for high-quality equipment.
Refurbished Sigma 24-70mm Lens for Nikon
Refurbished Sigma 24-70mm Lens for Canon
If you’re committed to your first-party brand or simply need an even more affordable food photography lens, use the table below to find the next best version for you.
Best Affordable Beginner 24-70mm Zoom Lenses (By Brand)
| Brand | Lens Model | Image Stabilization | Macro Capability | Check for Deals |
| Best Canon Lens for Food Photography Beginners | Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM | No | No | Check for Refurbished Deals |
| Best Nikon Lens for Food Photography Beginners | Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED | No | No | Check for Refurbished Deals |
| Best Sony Lens for Food Photography Beginners | Sony FE 24-70mm f/4 ZA OSS | Yes | No | Check for Refurbished Deals |
| Best Sigma Lens for Food Photography Beginners | Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM | No | No | Check for Refurbished Deals |
Best 3-Lens Setup for Food Photography
If you already have a 24-70mm zoom lens, the next step is to begin building out your food photography lens kit with prime lenses.
In my opinion, the best order to buy these lenses is 50mm for extra sharpness, 100mm macro for macro capabilities, then possibly a tilt-shift lens to round out your versatility.
1. 50mm f/1.2 or f/1.4 Lens
How This Lens Improves Food Photography & Videography
Since a 24-70mm zoom lens can already do a lot, I want to buy additional lenses that expand my abilities as much as possible. So personally, I go for the f/1.2 over the f/1.4.
But I’ve included both options for every brand in the tables below, so you can compare yourself. No doubt, f/1.4 is significantly cheaper. It’s totally fine to get f/1.4.
If you’re familiar with camera lenses at all, you know the 50mm is lovingly referred to as the “nifty fifty”. It’s among the most versatile kinds of lenses in existence.
When buying photography equipment, everyone has to choose where to splurge and where to save. In my opinion, this is a nice place to splurge for the sake of food videography. But if you’re on a very tight budget, there’s nothing wrong with going for f/1.8 instead.
- Super creamy bokeh for backed-off shots
- Ideal lens for over-the-table shots with its extreme sharpness and perfect focal length
- Exceptional for low-lighting situations like swanky bars
- f/1.2 allows for highly creative, almost abstract food photography
- f/1.2 also allows for excellent cooking and food videography
Sample Photos
Notice the super creamy bokeh on the cocktail photo!
Best 50mm f/1.2 Lens (By Brand)
Best Affordable 50mm Lenses
There are significant price cuts for f/1.4. I’m including the best matches for each version whenever possible.
These are all fantastic choices for food photography and even food videography.
2. 100mm f/2.8 Macro Lens
How This Macro Lens Improves Food Photography
I love my 100mm macro lens for the added capabilities it gives me when shooting food stories. Here are some of the best benefits that make this lens a workhorse.
- Adds excellent macro (extreme close-up) shots to your capabilities
- Increased sharpness makes your subjects pop even more
- Increased compression removes unwanted negative space, making excellent composition even easier
- Allows for insanely sharp backed-off and above-the-table shots, not just macro shots
- Gives a 1-1 view of your subjects, meaning their size in the photos will be true to life
Sample Photos
The Swiss chard leaf and poured syrup especially highlight the increased versatility that a 100mm macro lens gives a food photographer.
Best 100mm Macro Lens (By Brand)
| Brand | Lens Model | Image Stabilization | Check for Deals |
| Best Canon Macro Lens for Food Photography | Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM | Yes | Check for Refurbished Deals |
| Best Nikon Macro Lens for Food Photography | Nikon AF-S VR Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED | Yes | Check for Refurbished Deals |
| Best Sony Macro Lens for Food Photography | Sony FE 100mm f/2.8 STF GM OSS | Yes | Check for Refurbished Deals |
| Best Sigma Macro Lens for Food Photography | Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG OS HSM Macro | Yes | Check for Refurbished Deals |
| Best Fujifilm Macro Lens for Food Photography | Fujifilm XF 80mm f/2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro | Yes | Check for Refurbished Deals |
| Best Olympus Macro Lens for Food Photography | Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm f/2.8 Macro | No | Check for Refurbished Deals |
| Best Panasonic Macro Lens for Food Photography | Panasonic LUMIX Full Frame Camera Lens, S 100mm F2.8 Macro – S-E100 | No | Check for Refurbished Deals |
3. Tilt-Shift Lenses for Food Photography
I wouldn’t recommend getting into tilt-shift lenses unless you have all three lens types above. At that point, you should either be making money as a food photographer or just be a baller who loves great equipment.
Then you’ll want to widen your capabilities by investing in an 85mm (or similar) tilt-shift lens.
They are super fun! I already had plenty of food photography experience before I started mastering tilt-shift lenses. But still, I have to say, something about using these lenses really makes you feel like an expert and a professional.
Benefits of Tilt-Shift Lenses for Food Stories
- Controlled Perspective: Tilt-shift lenses allow you to adjust the perspective distortion, helping maintain straight lines and avoiding converging verticals, which is particularly useful when shooting dishes from unique angles.
- Selective Focus: These lenses enable selective focus by tilting the plane of focus, allowing you to emphasize specific areas of the dish while keeping others softly blurred. This control over depth of field can highlight key ingredients or details within the composition.
- Enhanced Depth of Field: By tilting the lens, you can achieve a greater depth of field compared to traditional lenses, making it easier to keep both foreground and background elements in focus, ideal for capturing intricate tabletop setups or multi-layered dishes.
- Correction of Distortion: Tilt-shift lenses can correct barrel distortion and other optical aberrations, ensuring that food items appear true to life and without any unwanted distortions or curvatures, resulting in more accurate and appealing images.
- Creative Composition: The ability to shift the lens horizontally or vertically allows for unique compositional choices, such as creating panoramas, adjusting the framing without changing the camera position, or capturing wide-angle views of tabletop setups without sacrificing perspective.
Best Canon & Nikon Tilt-Shift Lenses for Food Photography
| Brand | Lens Model | Focal Length | Check for Deals |
| Canon | Canon TS-E 90mm f/2.8L Macro | 90mm | Check for Refurbished Deals |
| Nikon | Nikon PC-E Micro-NIKKOR 85mm f/2.8D ED | 85mm | Check for Refurbished Deals |
The 24-70mm zoom lens stands out as the quintessential starter lens for aspiring food photographers due to its remarkable flexibility and range.
Whether capturing the vibrant atmosphere of a bustling kitchen or the intricate details of gourmet dishes, this lens accommodates a broad spectrum of photography needs. Its ability to adapt from wide-angle scenes to detailed close-ups makes it an invaluable tool in a food photographer’s arsenal.
From there, it depends whether you need a Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, or Olympus lens for food photography. Follow my buying strategy to save a lot of headaches and time.
Support a Fellow Photographer
Thanks so much for checking out the best lenses for food photography!
Just a heads up, some of the links in this article are affiliate links. That means if you click on them and make a purchase, I might earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Leave a Reply