Cannabis photography - lenses and tips

A few weeks ago we were invited to photograph a cannabis farm here in Mendocino County, California.

In Mendocino, cannabis can be grown completely outdoors under full spectrum UV light. No LED's, no tarps, just California sunshine and love.

This was an experimental grow for this farm, the plant clones themselves were not planted until early July. The head grower wanted to try a short cycle outdoors, then compare THC% amounts to the same variety of plant that was started from seed and allowed a longer growing time. I think that's what he was explaining to us anyway. No idea. I'm gonna stick to the photography side of things.

So for any growers, or anyone wanting to photograph cannabis plants, I think the secret is using a simple reflector. In fact the next time we shoot cannabis I want to cut out a small crescent shape out of cardboard and wrap it in foil, so we can reflect light around each plant and help minimize the dark shadowy side. Plus every added light source should help those crystals sparkle even more.

(Are they even crystals? They photograph more like oil drops. It's so fun to zoom in on the raw files on a big monitor. Cannabis plants are beyond weird and so beautiful at the same time.)

@voder shot these incredibly difficult macro images. No tripod, with a breeze blowing, he managed to keep tight focus without using post processing. He was shooting our newest pawnshop score... a $120 USD, 15yr old canon 100mm macro lens (soooooo sharp)! Woot woot ;)

The non-macro images I shot with a 50mm 1.4 ($350USD new), it's been my go-to cannabis lens for almost a year now. The focusing distance is kinda shitty, but the detail and sharpness are incredible. I guess the real moral of the story is anyone can take great cannabis photos without spending tons cash on expensive camera gear. I think you really just need one sharp lens and some creative reflectors.