Key Lens Attributes for Baby Photography

Baby photography (and more broadly photographing children) brings about its own unique challenges. Here are a couple of things to consider:

Aperture. A lower f-stop number (e.g. f1.4) is associated with a larger lens that collects more light. This is critical for low light photography (e.g. indoors), but even in decent light, a large aperture allows you to blur out the distracting background, like the mess your kids just left behind. Anything f2.8 or lower is typically considered fast, f4 is moderate and f5.6 is slow.
Auto Focus Speed. Unless your child is a newborn, he/she moves strikingly fast. Auto focus speed is key and this is the case where the most expensive glass doesn't necessarily mean better auto focus speed. In fact, some of the primes with a big aperture are slow to focus for the very reason that moving all that glass is difficult.
Cost and Durability. These are related, but not in the way you'd think. It's important to buy lenses that aren't just cheap plastic (typically the $100-200 price range) but you also don't want to buy such an expensive lens that you cry when your kid cracks or scratches the lens.

Okay, so what should I buy?

My recommendations are based on being a Canon user. Nikonians will find equivalent lenses available to them. For the parent photographer, I'd avoid the 3rd party brands. Tamron and Sigma make some lenses but they're generally not ideal for children's photography. So here's my top four recommendations, in the order I'd purchase them:

EF-S 17-85mm ("Flexible Photography") - It's a nice compromise between the "baby toy" 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 lens and the "you spent what!!!" 17-55mm f2.8 Canon lenses. The former isn't worth mentioning, in fact I have one that I'll let you have it till you get sick of it and pass on to the next poor parent. The latter is a beautiful lens but costs ~$1000 and while it's professional quality, it isn't compatible with the professional cameras (Canon 5D, 1D, 1Ds) making it difficult to justify. The 17-85mm gives you a very useful focal range, with the ability to take photos in the cramped nursery while also zooming into whatever action your toddler is getting into, for about $500. The aperture isn't great, but the image quality is good and it's light enough to carry around.

50mm f1.8 ("Nifty Fifty") - These lenses are light, sharp, great indoors and less than $100. For a full frame camera like the Canon 5D or Nikon D300, this is the first lens I'd buy, but I'm assuming you went with my recommendation and got a camera that didn't jeopardize the kids' college fund. This makes a great portrait lens and compliments all the weaknesses of the zoom lens above. If you have a few Franklins to spare the 50mm f1.4 is worth the extra ~$250 in increased durability and flexibility. There's a more complete review on my photography blog.

35mm f2 ("the Pancake") - This lens is sharp, relatively inexpensive at under $300 and portable enough to fit in a shirt pocket. This makes it ideal for indoor photography, traveling and family photos when the extended family pays a visit. While there are wider consumer priced lens at 24mm and 28mm, I've found their performance subpar. The two minor annoyances (to some) may be the vignetting wide open (I think it adds personality) and the noisy auto focus motor which sounds like a two-year old whining for ice cream. There's a more complete review on my photography blog.

70-200mm f4 ("Zoom Zoom") - This is a great lenses when your kids start playing soccer or other sports. It gets you close to the action and priced at about half what the other professional grade zooms cost, this one is a relative bargain. Besides, by the time your kids are playing soccer, you aren't forfeiting all that money for daycare and can fork over the six Ben Franklins for this lens. The grey color also makes you look like a professional.

...and that's it. With each of these lenses I'd recommend buying the lens hood. It's a black, plastic sleeve that attaches to the front of the camera. It blocks out stray light for better pictures. More importantly, it blocks out greasy little fingers from smudging your new investments.

Focusing on Your Kids

Baby, toddler and child photography puts special demands on the lens you use. At the same time, you want lens that grow with your kids. Here are some affordable recommendations for lens to go with your new fangled SLR.