Lens specifications recommendations?

[MountainMan304]

Hi everyone. I'm working on my next cataloging book(s) about West Virginia bottles, as well as an eventual website with all of the images and details, but I wanted to upgrade my photography setup prior to taking dedicated trips to large collections. Right now, I am planning on investing in a Canon EOS Rebel SL3 along with all the requisite equipment to make the whole operation a success.

These bottles will be of all different molds, sizes, and types of bottles: from 3" tall embossed colored meds, 8" tall ACL sodas, to 5-gallon paper label jugs. Only one bottle per image, with a neutral, white background and neutral, albeit bright, lighting. The only technical advice I seem to have gleaned was to shoot the bottles from further away (up to 12' for higher-zoom lenses), but that didn't really tell me what the lens's focal length, aperture, etc. should be to best take these images.

I'm not rolling in cash, so keeping it under $800 would be optimal, but if necessary I could perhaps justify a more expensive lens. Thank you in advance for any wisdom and/or recommendations!

 

[Semar]

I've been using a Fuji Finepix 650 6.0 megapixel point and shoot camera for years and years. My original Finepix I happened to drop rendering it unusable. It is a discontinued model now. I got a mint one on ebay after buying 2 there that were in crappy condition. I'm sure it's obsolete now, but then so am I.
Here are a few pics in this thread taken at night under the light from a lamp.
Notice the loss of depth of field in closeups.

It's Quilted!

What can it be? 3 and 3/8ths tall, strap sides, BS embossed on the front, round space for a label. Poison, cologne? Seems a bit fancy for a poison. I don't get out much, so I've not seen another example.

www.antique-bottles.net

When I was younger I had all Nikon stuff and used to take surf pics; they were good enough to be used in both Surfer and Surfing magazines.
I'm not telling you to go and search one of these out, but I'm quite happy with this camera and it is now very affordable if you can find one used. I highly respect Bruce and his pictures are excellent. If you're on a budget you can get one for peanuts and it makes very good pictures.
Irfanview is my choice for a picture manipulation program and it's a free download.

 

[MountainMan304]

I've been using a Fuji Finepix 650 6.0 megapixel point and shoot camera for years and years. My original Finepix I happened to drop rendering it unusable. It is a discontinued model now. I got a mint one on ebay after buying 2 there that were in crappy condition. I'm sure it's obsolete now, but then so am I.
Here are a few pics in this thread taken at night under the light from a lamp.
Notice the loss of depth of field in closeups.

It's Quilted!

What can it be? 3 and 3/8ths tall, strap sides, BS embossed on the front, round space for a label. Poison, cologne? Seems a bit fancy for a poison. I don't get out much, so I've not seen another example.

www.antique-bottles.net

When I was younger I had all Nikon stuff and used to take surf pics; they were good enough to be used in both Surfer and Surfing magazines.
I'm not telling you to go and search one of these out, but I'm quite happy with this camera and it is now very affordable if you can find one used. I highly respect Bruce and his pictures are excellent. If you're on a budget you can get one for peanuts and it makes very good pictures.
Irfanview is my choice for a picture manipulation program and it's a free download.

Thank you! I will certainly look into that one

 

[CanadianBottles]

I've never tried seriously photographing bottles, but if you're looking to buy a DSLR I'd suggest looking at the second hand market because older DSLRs have become very affordable over the last few years due to people wanting mirrorless cameras instead. I bought a Nikon D90 for $50 a while back and it takes excellent photos. I'm not sure you'd notice much improvement at all with a contemporary DSLR - the law of diminishing returns kicked in quite a long time ago for digital cameras, and the main difference with the modern ones seems to be gimmicky stuff like wireless connectivity instead of actual image quality.

These are a couple photos I took with my $50 D90 and a $30 zoom lens from the early 2000s. Not quite National Geographic-level sharpness, but this was also my first try at photographing birds and I didn't (and still don't) know anything about wildlife photography.