Food Photography Tips

[mandibc11]

There are so many tips for "Professional" food photography out there, but as far as taking shots of REAL food in restaurants, there really isn't that much help to be had!

I have a travel/food blog, and just purchased a Nikon D3100 for my upcoming trip to Disney. Does anyone have any words of wisdom to share about capturing great photos of a meal that doesn't look washed out, blurry, and/or disgusting? Especially for dim-lit, nighttime shots!

Thanks in advance

 

[mom2rtk]

What lens(es) do you have?

 

[mandibc11]

What lens(es) do you have?

It came with the 18-55mm, and then I also have a 55-200mm and a 50mm f/1.8...hopefully I can get something decent with one of those!

 

[PrincessInOz]

I'm still considering myself to be shooting with L-plates.

I'm shooting with a 17 - 55 mm f/2.8; but I suspect the 50 mm f/1.8 might also be sufficient for you.

These were taken at Gordon Ramsay's Maze restaurant in Melbourne, Australia. I was shooting manual and set my white balance to Tungsten light, which I think helps in dim-lit restaurants (sometimes).


ISO 1600, f/2.8, 46mm, 1/50 sec.

ISO 1600, f/2.8, 55mm, 1/60 sec.

ISO 3200, f/2.8, 48mm, 1/30 sec.

For the last shot here, I probably should have had the time of at least 1/50 sec; but it seemed to work at this setting.



These were taken at Club 33, DLR. I was shooting in No Flash mode and had set to WB to tungsten light.

ISO 1000, f/2.8, 35mm, 1/50 sec.

ISO 3200, f/2.8, 55mm, 1/100 sec.

These ones were shot in manual. I wasn't happy with shooting at ISO 3200 and wanted a bit more dof.

ISO 800, f/6.3, 40mm, 1/25 sec.

ISO 800, f/6.3, 33mm, 1/25 sec.

These were taken at Bradley Ogden's Root 246 in Solvang CA. Again, shooting in manual mode and white balance set to tungsten light.

ISO 800, f/2.8, 50mm, 1/50 sec.

ISO 800, f/2.8, 50mm, 1/20 sec.

I did check the 1/50 sec setting; but it seemed overbright on the meter, so I dialed the time back.


ISO 800, f/2.8, 44mm, 1/25 sec.

I too will be very interested to see what the semi-pro's and pro's have to say about taking food porn in dim light. Thanks for starting this thread.

 

[Groucho]

Definitely shoot in Raw mode, so you can easily fiddle with white balance later.

The 50mm F1.8 is probably your best choice. Food photography generally has a pretty small DoF... unless you want it to be more informative and less artsy. Shooting with that lens will also let you get a faster shutter speed in low light.

Here's a shot from Columbia Harbour House taken at F2.5 at 31mm.

Columbia Harbour House, Anchors Aweigh tuna sandwich by Groucho Dis, on Flickr

Here's one at 55mm; I'm not sure of the aperture (it was shot with a old manual macro lens) but probably F2.8 or F3.5.

So, to sum up:
washed-out - get the exposure right. Maybe try spot or center-weighted metering if you're getting too much light, or just try shooting in Manual.
blurry - use a faster shutter speed and/or steady the camera better. A "faster" lens will give you a faster shutter speed, or bump the ISO if need be (you will have to in low light.)
disgusting - white balance! If the white balance is off, the food will look weird and probably unappealing.

Good luck!

 

[disneyboy2003]

Taking photos of food in a dimly-lit restaurant is soooo hard. I, personally, try not to use flash. So I always end up using a combination of:

1. large aperture (small f-number, such as f/2.8),
2. slow shutter speed (like 1/10 - 1/20 sec), and
3. high ISO (like ISO 800-1600)

As previously mentioned, shoot in RAW, so that you can correct the white balance later on on the computer.


David Ziser, famed wedding photographer who knows TONS about creative lighting, recently wrote about photographing a wonderful dessert he had at a restaurant. But he didn't want to ruin the picture by using flat, uninteresting light from a direct flash. But all he had with him at the restaurant was the Canon 40D, with no other external flashes or lighting equipment. (who goes to dinner with lighting equipment? )

Here's the result he came up with:

How did he do this? He still used his camera's pop-up flash. But instead of having the flash shoot directly at the dessert, he placed a saucer in front of the pop-up flash and angled it 45 degrees to the left. All light from the pop-up flash, therefore, was directed toward camera-left.

His wife, sitting at his left, held up a clean white napkin on the dessert's left to reflect the light back onto the dessert. As a result, light from the pop-up flash was first directed to the left by the saucer, then bounced back to the cake by the napkin. You can see how soft, diffuse, and pleasing the lighting and shadows were as a result of all this.

Here's the blog post, where he describes this ingenious technique: link.

 

[mandibc11]

Thanks for the replies so far! This is very helpful, and although I'm still trying to figure out just WHERE on the camera to set my modes to the instruction you all have given me, I'm learning bit by bit!

All of your pictures look incredible, and I'm so excited to begin!

Keep 'em coming - very helpful!

 

[ssanders79]

I've started to get my feet wet in food photography. You can check out my trip reports or my flickr streams for some examples. I tend to shoot wide open with my 30mm f/1.8 handheld. I just picked up a gorillpod slr zoom to use as a table top pod as setting up a tripod in a restaurant is not really ideal.

The one thing I do not do is use flash. I shoot in RAW to have as much control as possible to fix the WB which can be tricky in some restaurants to get right. A little tip I found is that silverware can sometimes be used as a neutral grey point.

I have a lot to learn, but it has been fun so far.

 

[Altair]

IMHO shooting wide open gives you too little depth of field and leaves you with too much soft focus. I'd shoot at a slower shutter speed and higher ISO so I could close down the lens to get more DOF.

 

[ssanders79]

IMHO shooting wide open gives you too little depth of field and leaves you with too much soft focus. I'd shoot at a slower shutter speed and higher ISO so I could close down the lens to get more DOF.

This is very true but not always easy to do in low light restaurants. The points you brout up are why I picked up a gorillapod to use as a table top tripod to keep my ISO low, shoot in Apeture prio at a shaper fstop.