Lense for photographing art

Hi all, I wonder if you can give me some advice on which lens to buy for my very particular purpose. This is what I want it for:
I have an art shop: paintings as well as 3D-objects. Pictures on my website are increasingly important, so some years ago I bought a Nikon D60 (I'm on a very tight budget!) and used it with my age-old lenses, mainly the 50mm kit-lense, as this seemed, with a DX camera, a nice length for my purpose. I have to point out that I do not (or hardly) care for anything being automated; as getting the lighting and camera position right may take me from 5 minutes to an hour, even using a measuring tape for the distance wouldn't be too much of an additional hassle And of course time is no object either, with the old but rock solid tripod I use.
Increasingly, however, I am not satisfied with the results. Take the colors. You might well think that those uncalibrated computer screens are so far off anyway that it doesn't matter much, but that's not true at all. For instance, very subtle color-variations - often essential for the painting - sometimes don't show up, even though the eye can clearly see them in the original. I learned to work with raw-pictures, which helped but not enough. Also, 10 Mpix is not a lot these days. (I use the 'Zoomify' system on my site, so visitors can zoom in to very fine detail.)
So I decided I want to do better. As you'll have gathered, I'm not much of a photography buff; I do not even know WHY those subtle color-differences do not show up. Nevertheless, after reading the reviews I more-or-less settled on a good deal I could get for the D3200. However it comes with the 18-55mm lense and from the reviews I gather this does no justice to the quality of the sensor. So, I'm looking for the best (prime) lense for my purpose. I stress again that I'm only concerned with the quality (detail, color, distortion) in optimal circumstances. My best deal might be a modern AF-S DX lense, or it might be a second-hand lense of 30 years old - I wouldn't know, especially as I can't find any tests comparing those new and old lenses, at least not on the points I value most.
Can you help me?

A 50mm lens will be fine.

What you should be concerned with is lighting.

Right, the lighting, and the correct white balance.

A few things to help you out.

1. It sounds like you are using these photos for the purpose of web display and not print.

Also, 10 Mpix is not a lot these days.

Click to expand...

If this is correct, web not print, then 10 megapixel is at least 3x more than you need. Reason I mention this is that megapixels has far more to do with printing images than displaying them on the web. My point, don't assume that more megapixels is a better picture. That is simply marketing for the uninformed.

2. Color issues - I used to a be a printer for fine art limited numbered prints. We would run into this all the time with artist that had to sign off on the work before we could run the prints. On a printing press, or for displaying on wildly different monitors, you will never match the subtleties of color variation that an artist can create that our eye can see but can't exactly be replicated on a printing press or with the camera. The D3200 will do the job, but you may have to consider that your expectation might be too high.

3. Photo editing - You said that you have learned to work in raw and that has helped. Let me tell you, there is a far greater art IMO to the edit than the photograph itself. This is an area that I can not stress the skill involved. "Raw" is very raw and requires skills to polish it so that an image can be all it can be.

With all of that said, a 50mm prime on the D3200 will do the job. I second what Sparky said on the lighting. Like editing, the lighting is so critical. Variation in how the lighting is hitting the art and color temperature of the light will change the color. Again, back to the edit to correct this.

Hope this helps.

Welcome to Nikonites. A 50mm f/1.8 is very sharp, not too expensive and would meet your needs.

Could also try any macro lens since their focus is designed to be more flat/planar, thus making it better for flat mediums.

I would suggest a D3300 instead of the D3200. The price difference is not much but you get
. Faster processor
. More DR
. NO AA filter so colours should be better
. There are other advantages, but they do not apply in your case (faster FPS, better Video, in camera panorama etc)

Regarding colour nuances, you will never get perfect colours with most of the cameras. The reasons are many, but here are a few of them
. D3xxx series use 12 bit RAW, and the others use 14 bit RAW. In contrast the MF bodies use 15/16 bit RAW. That gives more shades to each of the primary colours, hence the nuances come out better. 12 bits = 1K, 14 bits = 16K and 16 bits = 64K shades.
. No bayer pattern sensor will reproduce colours faithfully (they are interpolated), you can come close but there is always a gap. That is why Hasselblad sells multi-shot backs, used primarily for artwork reproduction and archiving.

If your images are just for WEB, then the kit lens supplied with D3300 is fine. If you want better geometric correction (flat plane), then the Nikon 60mm Macro is your best bet. It is one of the sharpest flat plane lenses recommended for photographing flat objects - coins, stamps and paintings.

One thing that I cannot figure out is that if you are so particular about colour nuances, how do you expect your clients to appreciate them on their totally un calibrated monitors?