Attention all foodies! The next best thing to tasting delicious food is the joy of photographing it. In this article I’ll give you some practical information for food photography, as well as inspirational ideas for capturing these delectables through your lens. When it comes to food photography, my favorite go-to lens is my 50mm f/1.8 prime lens, as it allows me to take close-up shots with shallow or very shallow DOF. If I want to capture a broader perspective, I switch to my 15–85mm f/3.5–5.6 lens and use a wide-angle focal length.
If you are shooting food in a restaurant under tungsten light (incandescent light), set your white balance to Tungsten. This will help to cool the photo and counteract the yellow tones that result from the temperature of this light.
In low-light situations you have some choices. You can increase ISO to make your DSLR more sensitive to the available light, use a reflector to bounce natural light into the shadowy areas of the scene, use an external flash unit and bounce it off a white ceiling or reflector, or power it down and use it as a fill flash. A diffuser dome placed over your flash will help to soften the bounced light. Or place your camera on a tripod to accommodate a slower shutter speed; you can use your lowest ISO setting on the tripod. If you are in a restaurant setting, I don’t recommend using flash, as it’s intrusive to diners. And, um, keep the tripod and reflectors at home, too.
As with still-life shots, using a shallow DOF is preferable. Use your camera’s Portrait Scene mode or Close-Up/Macro Scene mode to achieve this. If using P mode, keep an eye on the aperture to make sure it’s wide enough for you, and it should be, especially if you are taking the photo in lower light. If you need to adjust aperture size in P mode, you can indirectly do so with the program shift feature. Turning the dial to the right will increase shutter speed and indirectly give you a wider aperture. Turning the dial to the left will decrease shutter speed and indirectly give you a smaller aperture. Always keep an eye on shutter speed—in lower light situations it will always be on the slower side. If it slows too much for a handheld shot, take out the trusty tripod. If you want to take the shot handheld, bump up the ISO. Flash is always a possibility.
Try stacking macarons or cookies for a pleasing shot. They don’t have to be perfectly stacked; in fact the off-kilter look of this pile of macarons adds visual interest to the shot. I used a white wooden stool seat for the table top and white posterboard for the backdrop, which actually took on a pleasing creamy-peach cast in the given ambient light. 50mm f/1.8 lens, ISO 400, f/5.6 for 1⁄60 sec.
I used my zoom lens with wide-angle capability to get this shot of ingredients I used to make a hearty fall soup. Most of the vegetables came from our garden, infusing the photo with personal meaning. 15–85mm f/3.5–5.6 lens at 22mm, ISO 400, f/4 for 1⁄25 sec. with image stabilization.
In Aperture Priority mode or Manual mode, select a wide aperture (lower f-number) to achieve shallow DOF. If you want to capture some detail in the background, use a smaller aperture (greater f-number) like f/5.6 and see if it appeals to you. Smaller apertures will slow the shutter speed too much in low-light situations, so you’ll have to accommodate with one of the techniques aforementioned. Ranges: Roughly f/4 or wider to create foodie shots with shallow DOF. Use f/5.6 to f/11 to create greater DOF. Specifics: In Aperture Priority mode, select your ideal aperture, choose an ISO that’s a good match for the light, and the camera will select a shutter speed that balances out settings for a proper exposure. If the shutter speed is too slow, you know what to do at this point in your learning. In Manual mode, dial in that aperture you love, choose an appropriate ISO (the lower the better), and bring the light meter marker to center with your shutter speed setting. Mind the shutter speed and have the tripod or flash on hand.
The lovely thing about a mobile phone is that you can carry it with ease on your person. You can pull it from your pocket and take a quick snapshot of your food at a cafe or coffeehouse. It’s also nice to have when you don’t feel like lugging your DSLR and lenses around. My kiddos and I went strawberry picking, and the last thing I needed was to have a bulky DSLR to carry around in the dusty dirt while trying to pick and carry all the quarts of fruit.
High-key or slightly over-exposed food shots are trendy these days (as are slightly underexposed, darker, richer shots of food set against slate gray and black). I like both equally but have experimented more with the former. To achieve a high-key look I use exposure compensation to increase exposure by a stop or two, and for a slightly underexposed look I use exposure compensation to decrease exposure by a stop or two. If you are shooting in Manual mode, you do not have access to exposure compensation, so you must slightly over- or underexpose when dialing in the settings manually.
You can increase the brightness of your photo in the post-editing stage to achieve that high-key effect. In Photoshop CS/Elements you can increase brightness or manipulate levels or curves to achieve that slightly overexposed look.
With mobile phones, you can manipulate brightness/exposure with apps like PhotoWizard, Leonardo, Filterstorm, Photoshop Touch, Photoshop Express or Photogene. Camera+ offers filters to alter the tonal values.
Flip through your favorite food magazine or cookbook and notice what types of shots you are attracted to. Do you like backgrounds that are blurred or ones that show more detail? Do you like when portions of the food are blurred, or would you prefer the food to be more in focus?
Inspirational food photography Web sites: Tastespotting.com, Foodgawker.com, Pinterest.com, Kinfolk.com.
Foodie photographers I enjoy: AliceGao.com, WhatKatieAte.com, RoostBlog.com, PiaJaneBijkerk.com.