I am purchasing a Canon 550d primarily to document my fiance's artwork for archival purposes. I would like to know what lens or lenses you would recommend in order to minimise distortion.
I will be photographing the work indoors, using artificial light (thanks for the suggestions about lighting and other technical matters). The artwork is primarily 2D, up to 3 meters long on its longest size.
We were considering buying a the kit EF-S 18-135mm IS lens as a versatile lens, however I suspect the ~$300 could be better spent on a more specialised lens. While this is around the current limit of our budget, an initial purchase of this magnitude could be followed by later, more expensive lenses.
We have no existing system of SLR lenses.