The best camera for product photography

With the best camera for product photography, you can completely transform the quality of your product shots. While lighting is arguably the key to good product photography, it all starts with the camera, and upgrading your shooting setup is a crucial first step. Whether you're looking to shoot products professionally, or are just looking to improve your photos for your Etsy store or similar, a good product camera should be high on your list of priorities.

You don't necessarily need an expensive full-frame setup, and our guide to the best product photography cameras includes options of different types, and at different price points, including compact cameras with fixed lenses as well as mirrorless cameras and DSLRs where you can pick the lenses you use.

All our picks here are cameras that have been reviewed and rated highly by our team – we're only recommending cameras we have fully vetted. So, without further ado, here are our selections of the best cameras for product photography.

Jon Stapley

Jon is one of our go-to specialists when it comes to all aspects of photography, from cameras and action cameras to lenses and memory cards, flash diffusers and triggers, batteries and memory cards, selfie sticks and gimbals, and much more besides. Here, he has worked with our review team to select the best cameras for product photography, based on DCW's testing.

The quick list

Best camera for product photography

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Best overall

A good product photography camera ideally should do a bit of everything, and do it pretty well. For this, we’d recommend a capable all-rounder like the Sony A6700. This APS-C mirrorless camera is very easy to use, but still capable of producing images of excellent quality thanks to its 26.1MP sensor. The Sony E-mount lens selection is extensive, with plenty of large-aperture optics to capture images with a shallow depth of field.

Essentially, this camera gives you a range of professional features in a slim, lightweight package that costs a good less than most full-frame system cameras. While many photographers are a little obsessed with full-frame, in reality, the APS-C sensor of the A6700 is going to be more than sufficient for the purposes of the majority of product photographers. Also, if this camera is a little too expensive for you, Sony keeps a lot of its A6X00 line in production, meaning there are cheaper alternatives available – see for instance our Sony A6700 vs Sony A6600 comparison piece for a look at one alternative.

See our full Sony A6700 review

Best hybrid

As a product photographer, you may also need to capture video of your subjects. If you'd like an excellent hybrid camera that will excel at both photo and video capture when it comes to products, our pick is the excellent Fujifilm X-S20. Equipped with a 26.1MP APS-C sensor, it's a stylish and capable camera that gives you access to the brilliant X-mount series of lenses, which are perfect for shooting images with a shallow depth of field.

On the video side, you have a number of dedicated vlogging modes, accessed via the new 'Vlog' setting on the dial. Particularly germane to our purposes here is the Product Priority mode, which is optimised to put products specifically in the focus in the frame. Don't worry though – stills photographers have plenty of functions to play with, including of course, Fuji's excellent Film Simulation looks. If you want to get great-looking, punchy images straight out of camera, the X-S20 is an outstanding choice.

While it's more expensive than the previous X-S10, the upgrades to the X-S20 make it worth the extra outlay, especially if you're shooting both photos and videos of products.

See our full Fujifilm X-S20 review.

Best compact

A good compact camera can be great for product photography, providing everything you need in one convenient package. We’d definitely recommend getting the Sony RX100 VA, which pairs a 1-inch sensor with a 24-70mm equivalent lens that has a maximum aperture range of f/1.8-2.8. This is pretty much all you’ll need for product photography, and means you’ll be able to capture great images in any lighting conditions, with a camera small enough to take everywhere.

This camera is a very minor refresh of the Sony RX100 V, providing essentially the exact same formulation of camera, but boosting the shot buffer and viewfinder responsiveness, as well as making other general operational tweaks. It isn't the latest in Sony’s hugely successful RX100 compact range – that’s actually the flagship Sony RX100 VII. We’ve included the V here as we think it’s the best balance of price and features at the moment, but nearly every model in the series is still available.

Need something cheaper? Try the RX100 IV, or an older model than that (you may have to shop second-hand). Want a longer lens? The Sony RX100 VI and VII can reach equivalent focal lengths of 200mm. Whichever RX100 model you pick, you’re getting a great camera!

See Sony RX100 III vs RX100 IV vs RX100 V vs RX100 VI vs RX100 VII and our full Sony RX100 V review

Best beginner mirrorless

If you’re a little new to photography and want to shoot products, a camera that’s well-oriented to beginners is the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV. Nippy and lightweight, with intuitive, dial-based controls, this is a top-notch camera for getting to grips with the basics of photography.

We’ve included a couple more beginner models further down the list, but the E-M10 IV is our pick for beginner mirrorless models. Its sensor-shift stabilization system makes shooting hand-held easier in all lighting conditions, and having access to the huge stable of Micro Four Thirds lenses gives you real flexibility when it comes to your setup.

See our full Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV review.

Best beginner DSLR

While the Canon EOS Rebel SL3 (also sold as the EOS 250D depending where you are) is still replete with beginner-friendly modes, it caters to a slightly more advanced user than the likes of the now-discontinued Nikon D3500. Its vari-angle touchscreen allows for much easier variation in shooting angle, and its battery life is hugely impressive. Wi-Fi is present and correct as well, making for super-speedy image transfers, and the EF lens library is one of the biggest in the business.

While Canon does make cheaper DSLRs, the Rebel T7 (EOS 2000D) and Rebel T100 (EOS 4000D) are too stripped-down for our liking, making this the cheapest Canon DSLR we’d happily recommend buying. It’ll allow you to produce excellent product images with ease.

See our Canon Rebel SL3 / EOS 250D review

Best Canon mirrorless

A replacement for the popular EOS M50 Mark II – which for a long time occupied a space on this list – the Canon EOS R50 is a solid and inexpensive all-rounder that is well-suited for product photography. Delivering excellent image quality from its APS-C sensor, the EOS R50 also has a guided-UI that helps new shooters get their heads around the basics. It's an ideal stepping stone into EOS R, which is a powerful and capable mirrorless system that's filling out with some brilliant cameras and lenses.

The light build of the EOS R50 is a boon in some respects, though it does mean it balances a little awkwardly with some lenses. This is less of an issue in the studio shooting products than it would be for street or wildlife photography, but it's worth mentioning. Otherwise, this is a camera that has hugely impressed us, and for the price it offers great valiue for the product photographer.

Read our Canon EOS R50 review.

Affordable full-frame

If you want to use a full-frame camera for product photography, the Nikon Z5 is a great option. It's much more affordable than many of its rivals from the likes of Canon and Sony, and while it lags behind a little in terms of features like autofocus speed (it's a few years old now), for shooting still products, this doesn't matter too much. What matters is the image quality and the lens selection, and both are excellent here.

The Nikon Z-mount range of lenses has been expanding nicely, with plenty of great macros and short telephotos that are excellent for product shooting (see our Nikon Z lens guide for some suggestions). The 24-50mm kit lens that is often bundled with this camera is a little lacklustre – we'd say skip it, get the camera body-only and look for a good close-up lens either new or second hand.

Read our full Nikon Z5 review.

Best pro full-frame

If you’re looking for a professional-grade camera for product photography, the Sony A7R IVA is one of the best you can get. Not only does it have a 61MP sensor boasting one of the highest resolutions around, but it also has Pixel Shift Multi Shooting, which can combine multiple images to create images up to 240MP in size.

And when you’re shooting products, a.k.a. things that don’t move, you’re free to take full advantage of such modes! This also means that the handling niggles of the A7 series – their slightly boxy construction and balancing issues with big lenses – aren’t such an issue, as you likely aren’t trekking outdoors with them when shooting products.

(Note that the Sony A7R IVA is a refreshed version of the A7R IV, all but identical except for a higher-resolution rear screen).

There is a newer Sony A7R V available - but that costs more without increasing resolution. The A7R IV is one of the best high-resolution cameras you can get for product photography – to get more pixels and image detail than this, you have to venture into the world of medium format. Speaking of which...

See our full Sony A7R IV review

Best medium format

Many professional product photographers use large-sensor medium format cameras for the sheer resolution and quality they offer. The main disadvantage of medium format (other than the cost) is that the systems tend to be big, bulky and heavy – however, this isn't a problem when you're shooting in the studio. If you're looking to jump into a medium format system for product photography, we'd recommend Fujifilm's fantastic GFX system, and specifically the GFX 100S II.

While it may look pricey, in medium-format terms the GFX 100S II is actually on the affordable end. Producing spectacular 102MP images, the GFX 100S II can also use a new low ISO setting of 80, allowing you to get as much clarity and quality in your shots as possible. Stabilization and autofocus have been improved and the superb GF lens range has expanded. The only real sticking point in our review was the middling battery life – and again, this will be much less of a problem in a product photography studio than it was for us out in the field.

See our full Fujifilm GFX 100S II review

How to choose a camera for product photography

For product photography, getting the exact right type of camera isn't as important as it is in other disciplines. As you're effectively shooting still-life, likely in a fairly well-controlled environment, there are quite a few camera comparison features you don’t really have to worry about – autofocus speed, for instance, isn’t much of a concern when your subjects don’t move. Nor is burst speed, and stabilisation is less essential when you can easily pop up a tripod.

You need a camera that captures images at a decent resolution – 24MP is fine, though you'll want more if you're photographing for print. Ideally, you also want to be able to shoot with a shallow depth of field – this means having the main subject of an image sharply in focus, and the background artfully blurred. This is more to do with the lens than the camera; you want a long-ish lens with a wide maximum aperture. So if you're choosing a system camera (mirrorless or DSLR), it's a good idea to have a look at the lens selection before committing.

How we test cameras

When we test cameras – as we have tested every model on this list – we put them through a series of benchmarks in carefully controlled lab conditions. We measure resolution, dynamic range, and signal-to-noise ratio. Resolution is measured using ISO resolution charts, dynamic range is measured using DxO Analyzer test equipment and DxO Analyzer is also used for noise analysis across the camera's ISO range.

However, this is only half the story, as we also look at how cameras perform in the real world for tasks like product photography. Our reviewers take cameras out into different shooting situations and put them through their paces with a range of subjects. This helps give us a complete picture of how a camera performs, and how suitable it is for specific applications like product photography. See more about how we test and review at Digital Camera World.

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