Floral Design photography

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KarateVo

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Graham
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My daughter is studying to become a Floral Designer. She wants to buy a camera and a len only for her portfolio to disaply her design work.

My budget for her is around £2,000.

She likes Fujifilm the best but will acceot SONY if you think they are better than Fujifilm.

1 main len - do you think a 50mm is the right choice for her main len? If you think otherwise, please let me know, and if you think there should be a 2nd len, please also let me know - maybe I'll add £500 extra for the budget.

Thank you
 
It won't really matter what camera she uses, product photography is all about the lighting.

As for lens, it depends on how large the products are and what result she wants.

Impossible to say without much more information.

As for "She will accept SONY" it doesn't appear that she knows much about camera systems. (No offence).

Any system nowadays will produce what she wants / needs with the correct lighting.


Also most Fujifilm cameras are crop sensor bodies so the 50mm will equate to 75mm in full frame terms (if comparing to a Sony full frame body).
 
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As above
With a £2k budget to start photographing flowers id start with lights, with a 2 or 3 head kit from Lencarta, add in a couple of additional modifiers, maybe a snoot and a std reflector with grid, and a strip box. A couple of 5 in 1 reflectors. Stand and reflector clip.

Then look for a shortish Macro lens, I’ve no idea what Fuji offer, but maybe a 50mm? And then buy a s/h camera with whatever is left.

But im fairly confident that will be ignored because someone thinks ‘cameras take pictures’.

Please have a think though. To ‘photograph’ is to paint with light, so the light is the most important thing she will have control over. You could honestly buy a £100 camera put a half decent lens on it and the images with good lighting will hands down beat a £1000 camera with the same lens and no lighting budget.
 
simon ess said:
Just for clarity - will she be photographing completed floral arrangements or designs on paper?
Click to expand...
completed Floral arrangements

About lighting from the above posting, the college will provide this as I was told recently.
 
KarateVo said:
completed Floral arrangements

About lighting from the above posting, the college will provide this as I was told recently.
Click to expand...
Will it always be table top scale, or is it likely to be whole room displays .eg church displays for weddings
 
I had Sony full frame and before that had Fuji.

I now use M4/3 system and using studio strobe you cannot tell which system took which shot. Really.

So save your 2k and buy a reasonable body and a bloody good lens to go with it.

You could have change from £600 if you shop wisely.
 
Get a Fuji XT-1 or XT-2 ( used) add to that a Fuji 18-55 or 18-135, you won,t need fast glass i.e f2.8 and you won't need fast auto focus on the camera ( the display ain't moving), throw in a Fuji 60mm f2.8 macro ( razor sharp) for close ups .
Add a decent tripod and a cable release and that should be more than adequate.

Thought
You said the college will supply the lighting, assuming this will be studio flash before you rush off and buy anything clarify the lighting.
If its flash find out how it is triggered because that could make a significant difference to the camera
 
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KarateVo said:
completed Floral arrangements

About lighting from the above posting, the college will provide this as I was told recently.
Click to expand...
I don’t know what to add.

Genuinely you could spend £500 and she’d have everything she needs. Or you could spend £20k. And the man in the street definitely would not be able to tell the difference.

I always say that a ‘first camera’ is precisely that, the first. She’ll either not get into it, and it’ll end up in the bottom of the wardrobe, or she’ll love it and decide she needs at least one other camera and a bunch of lenses.

And on that score, I’d advise against a ‘starter’ camera, get something mid range, second hand and save the big money for what comes next. Then get the best ‘standard zoom’ within budget, and a macro lens around 50mm.

If you really want to spend all your budget, you can definitely get a new Fuji, decent std zoom and macro for the money.

I wouldn’t, but you definitely could if you really want to.

Added info.

Cameras are like cars, there isn’t a ‘best’ without narrowing parameters, and there are very few ‘bad’ ones, although as above there’s definitely some I’d avoid as they’re designed purely to be upgraded from.
 
myotis said:
Will it always be table top scale, or is it likely to be whole room displays .eg church displays for weddings
Click to expand...
I will have to ask my daughter, but in the meantime, just "small "eoom display to make portfolio. Church/Wedding might come in the future I believe. I'll ask her
 
KarateVo said:
completed Floral arrangements

About lighting from the above posting, the college will provide this as I was told recently.
Click to expand...

I would consider the same camera system the college teaching staff are using. Using the same system may help them provide better instruction as well as ensuring compatibility with their lighting.
 
My grand daughter owns a florist shop. She is also somewhat interested in photography, so has worked with me some in my studio and knows the basics. Two years ago I gave her a Canon Rebel T7 with a 50 mm lens, a set of umbrellas, light stands one 32" square soft box with speedlite F2 adapter and a speedlite, She has been doing quite well and will be picking up a second speedlite from me during her next visit. The camera is seeing quite a bit of use in the shop and also on her vacations.
She has built a small table studio in the corner of her shop back room, and takes photos of every flower arrangement that she does and now has a book of the photos available for customers to look at who have trouble deciding. A website is also in the works. She is welcome to borrow just about anything in my studio, including better cameras, but has been very happy with the results that she has been getting with the T7. For this type of work it isn't the camera, but the use of the right lighting and the arrangement that makes the difference.

Charley
 
CharleyL said:
My grand daughter owns a florist shop. She is also somewhat interested in photography, so has worked with me some in my studio and knows the basics. Two years ago I gave her a Canon Rebel T7 with a 50 mm lens, a set of umbrellas, light stands one 32" square soft box with speedlite F2 adapter and a speedlite, She has been doing quite well and will be picking up a second speedlite from me during her next visit. The camera is seeing quite a bit of use in the shop and also on her vacations.
She has built a small table studio in the corner of her shop back room, and takes photos of every flower arrangement that she does and now has a book of the photos available for customers to look at who have trouble deciding. A website is also in the works. She is welcome to borrow just about anything in my studio, including better cameras, but has been very happy with the results that she has been getting with the T7. For this type of work it isn't the camera, but the use of the right lighting and the arrangement that makes the difference.

Charley
Click to expand...
Interesting and thank you. It will be a long wait before my daughter owns a florist shop lol
 
@KarateVo

Giving her the ability to photograph her work so she can compare earlier work to her latest will be a significant help with her education. I wasn't using the Canon Rebel T7 any more and have spare lenses and other gear that I knew she could use, so I put together a package to give her for her birthday from what I thought she could use to get started. I didn't buy much, except for new camera batteries and charger, a few memory cards, lens cleaner kit, etc. I also added one of my older, but still good tripods to this kit. I don't think I spent much but wanted to give her everything she would need to get started. In the past two years she has become very proficient with what I put in that kit/birthday present. Since I was no longer using much of what I gave her, it was a good birthday present for her, and one that has helped her achieve her dreams.

My grand daughter's website is "fieldsofheatherfloraldesign". She is in Gold Hill, NC (so you hopefully find the right website). Your daughter might like to see this website too, and maybe it will get her more inspired in both photography and floral design. My grand daughter worked in someone else's shop, then became the manager of that shop, before opening her own shop. Gold Hill is a historic gold mining town and bit of a re-creation of what the town had been during the gold mining days of the early 1800's. Some buildings have been moved from elsewhere to assemble this community, intended mostly for tourism. There isn't much to it, but many locals live on small farms and communities around it. My grand daughter's shop is at her home on one of these small farms. No store, yet, but the locals are coming to her for their floral needs via her phone and website.

Charley
 
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