Struggling with food...

Hey all,

Just wondering if anyone can give any hints, tips or advice regarding photographing food, glorious food?

Been wanting to play with it for a while but never bothered out of laziness. Then I seen this 'cake slice' in the fridge that was bought two days ago. It's horrible, so it'll end up in the bin, but I thought I'd try my luck with the camera while it was there anyway.


Now, I've no elaborate lighting set up. Room lights and a flashgun (that isn't seeing much use), but I'm fairly sure I've seen some lovely food shots that looked quite simple.

It's bugging me. Would you say the below photo is poorly lit? Badly composed? Wrong Depth of field choice? Poor subject?

All of the above?


Just looking for a bit of an idea from someone else.






Cheers

Effects

You need to HDR that cake.

KylieWyley

I'd personally like to see more of the glazing on top - interesting pattern, appetizing, etc.. So maybe take it from a slightly higher angle?

Effects

Seems like to much reflection off the glazing on the cake too. Maybe shoot it with a circular pol.

5unflower

I find colours and vibrancy are very important in food photography, since the slice is relatively plain in colour maybe highlighting the more interesting bit which seems to be the icing as pointed out above would be worth a shot

Also, a slice of cake like this has a pretty even geometrical shape, maybe one could try to focus on that somehow, i.e. the triangular shape in contrast to the round plate or something along those lines.

Keeping food simple (both for eating and for photography purposes :-) ) is of course to be commended, but to me this slice of cakes looks a bit forlorn on the plate, maybe a small piece of (edible) decoration or even a piece of cutlery would complement it.

Third Eye

You already have access to a sophisticated lighting system -daylight. Place your cake near a window and turn off auto white balance. The shadows will be a lot more interesting especially with this winter light. Also turn the slice so that it points into the picture because at he moment it's like a big arrow pointing the viewer out of the frame.

Right, I've tried a higher perspective, changed the direction of the cake, threw a CPL filter on the lens and adjusted my flash settings, etc.

I originally had a fork on the plate, but the handle was green so i felt it looked out of place (the plate/cake are the same kinda colour etc.).


It's a significant improvement, in my opinion, but im still not sure if it's missing something, aside from perhaps suffering from too much empty space?








It's right beside a window by the way. Quick snap of the "set up";

Nforce

I'm no expert...but I'd recommend shooting it in a light tent on a plain white plate thereby putting the focus of attention on the slice itself.

Third Eye

The flash on top of camera is flattening your cake. Can you take the flash to one side or else use an anglepoise lamp to one side. You need shadows to give it body.

I'm not gonna take any more shots of that cake. It's annoying me. I'll get a few small buns sometime and try again.


I agree that a light tent would be great, and I've been meaning to get one for a while, but I can't really buy online at the moment, so I've to put it off for a little bit.

Will hopefully get one before Christmas and get to play about with taking food/product shots.

DeVore

I think its the lighting, plus you have shown the entire slice dead centre with no DoF. Forgive me for saying, but its a bit of a boring shot really. I'd get in real close and use the "rule of thirds" a bit, plus put some depth into the focus and light it much less harshly (infact I wouldnt use a flash at all in that situation, I cant imagine why you are). You might want to leave some of the slice out of shot too...

Good luck and let us see the results.... food photography is an interest of mine too!

DeV.

mathepac

+1 with Devore above but I believe you need to contrast the rather neutral, washy colours of the cake, filling and topping with something punchy that makes the cake jump out, rather than the shiny white plate it sits on. I also find that the patterned border on the plate and the bowl and the shadows they make distract my eye from the cake. The perspective in the first shot is more to my liking, maybe try a macro shot that emphasises the different textures of the cake. Try a few long-exposure time shots with no flash.

Scamp-

More chocolate less sponge.

Yock.

Jim

JUST EAT THE DAMN CAKE ALREADY

sheesh

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm not gonna take any more shots of that cake. It's annoying me. I'll get a few small buns sometime and try again.

oh dear I can see this ending badly


first off i do not like the plate, its pattern, I think. distracts from the cake. use a white one

secondly i think you are too far away from the the cake there is alot of dead space around them.


lightingwise shoot it next to the window with the light coming from one side and have a white sheet of paper to act as a reflector on the dark side think about the background (more colored paper we used green)


I should point out that I am saying all this after doing one session of fruit photography with the local club but the guy that set it up was a pro and actually does this sort of thing professionally aperature was setup so the so the depth of focus encompassed the whole of the thing being in focus

so I don't really know what I am talking about.:D



http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html this might help the depth of focus calculation.

DeVore

Why don't we make this a learning experience. Everyone get a slice of cake and shoot it.... ?

I'm game, plus.......like .... cake!

DeV

DotOrg

Deleted User wrote: »

negatives:
you have harsh flash light meaning harsh shadows, the table cloth is creased, the cup at the back is empty and adds nothing to the ambience of the shot. the whole thing isn't straight. the composition doesn't draw you into the shot. there are things in focus that are unimportant and parts of the cake are then out of focus.

A lot of food photographers use dedicated macro lenses or even better tilt shift lenses that change the plane of focus so that everything you wish is o in focus.

use soft light, window light or big softboxes or bounce your flash of big wide white surfaces. try to compose the shot using the rule of thirds or based around the shape of the food on the plate

have a browse of these shots:
http://www.jeancazals.net/food-photographer.html
and pick one and try and recreate it as regards composition and lighting and focus and see what bits you are getting right and wrong

positives:
it's cake

*eadaoin

i'm no expert, but i've shot a lot of cupcakes in my time! and drooled over manys a food blog with gorgeous photos.

for me food photography is all about wide open apertures, natural light, careful composition, attention to colour and a little bit of styling.

have a look at these blogs, they are the ones that i draw most of my inspiration from:

http://cannelle-vanille.blogspot.com/
http://www.mytartelette.com/
http://www.bakerella.com/
http://www.honeyandjam.com/

all food shots i take are done by a big window with the blinds pulled right up out of the way so as much light as possible gets in. i never use flash (then again i only have an on camera flash!).

i often use a home made reflector made from card & tinfoil and experiment a lot with light to see what suits the subject best.

you can pick up cheap pretty plates and things for props in places like dunnes stores or tk maxx (ikea is probably good too, but i've never been out there).

i would say have a look through those blogs, get some ideas about styling and the kind of shot you'd like to create and give it another try

oshead

Good advise from eadaoin. I agree on all her points but one. The light source dosn't have to be natural light. Just very large and diffuse. Most people havn't got large soft boxes or light tents etc.... so the next best thing is a large North facing window. North facing because the light is diffused before it even gets to the window. So... the quality of light flooding in is really nice, soft and multi directional. Another advantage of a north facing window is the consistency (colour and intensity) of light coming from it from one end of the day to the other. It dosn't really change much. Coincidently, those and more are also the attributes of a good softbox and lighting system.

DeVore

So this is how mental my life can be.... I've been meaning to reply to this thread since November (and its been in my mind to do so!) but only this week did I get a chance to shoot these...


Ok, I tried to detail the different settings I used here to move from trying to recreate your picture ... then moving along to what I think would be good.


Firstly: Subject.... You're slice of cake isnt exactly awesome. I'm not sure its all that appetising and it doesnt have much "sex appeal" as cake so I picked a simple piece of apple pie for similarity. I think its nicer then your cake though of course thats subjective... its pretty plain anyway.

The pics are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/78645925@N00/sets/72157626187774393/

They are titled in numbered order (I think I got it right)


The first pic is with a kit Canon lens, full normal flash and everything on auto. Its horrible.
It has similar flash blow out to your pic and looks a bit forlorn...

First thing I did, and the first thing I usually do... I turned off the flash.

Then I switched lens. This is critical... the glass you put the light through is one of the most important things you can decide. I have 3 lenses but the vast majority of the time I use my nifty fifty... the 50mm that EVERY Canon owner should own.

This lens gives me a really nice bokeh (blur). I've also moved closer to start to focus on just a part of the cake... narrow focus on food is going to be your friend!!

Then I altered the aperture down a couple of stops to make the light look that bit "richer". This worked because I had light the subject pretty well with spot lights in my kitchen! I was able to control the light in this manner as you can see.

Finally I moved a few clean, simple recognisable items into the background to give some depth and context to the shot.

So there you go!

---

Ok, disclaimer... I'm still barely past "dont point the lens bit at the bright thing in the sky", so I dont claim to be an expert. But I *used* to sit there and look at peoples pics and get frustrated that their pics were SO much better than mine. I couldnt work out why, I could just see my awful flat boring washed out shots.

There are some things you can do to change that and I hope I've outlined some above. But some you simply need some basic gear (like the lens I recommended, <€100 btw). You just wont get that lovely blurring with a kit lens which is designed to focus on everything, so as to help Daddy on his holidays with the kids.

So, hope this helps...

DeV.
PS: my favourite is the last pic om nyom nyom!!

Thecageyone

Get in closer, use the flash off-cam and try different angles, ramp up the contrast in post. It is a bit flat and lifeless [ok, I know cakes don't have souls ...] and lacking 'oomph!' I want to feel hungry when I view food pic's. I think a plain white plate would be better, and get down lower and in close to the cake. Sharp where you want, shallow DOF to smoothen out the backing that we're not interested in.

shanona

i'm excited to see what you come up with! i'm rubbish at food photography.
this has been a fun thread to follow!

JayEnnis

Have a look at this video by fstoppers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpS10LFmilc

Dodgykeeper

SOD_1858 by fergus.mcnally, on Flickr

I use a piece of white card (easons) and make an infinity curve, I use a soft box to softer the light and shallo DOF, I always prefer plain white plates and avoid clutter..

To be honest in my line of work I am often able to take pics of some stunnig food, you cake was a bit drab looking tbh..

DaireQuinlan

Take a picture of your Breakfast !


A picture of your Lunch !


Take a picture of all the stuff still in their wrappers !

GristlyEnd

Make some cookies today with Kooky Dough. Camera was close by so took a few photos.

elven

I mostly shoot yarn. But this counts as food, no..?

trishw78

Yum yum yarn

Necronomicon

This thread has been a great read. Been trying my hand at food photography a good bit lately. Here's a set of a recent baking session:

DeVore

Wow. some lovely shots of food here.

I'm curious what F, Iso, Lens you all used....

Gotta love that pic of the gingerbread house....wow. makes me salivate.

DeV.

Necronomicon

DeVore wrote: »

Wow. some lovely shots of food here.

I'm curious what F, Iso, Lens you all used....

Gotta love that pic of the gingerbread house....wow. makes me salivate.

DeV.

All of my ones above were with the nifty fifty, bar the last one which was with my 100mm. All fairly open apertures, around 2.8 and with a bounced flash from my 580ex II.

FlipperThePriest

Cool thread, some great advice and pics. Inspired me to shoot food for the first time... didn't have any prepared meals or cakes but I did have the ingredients of one of my favourite deserts. Tougher than it looks, it's possibly one of the toughest things I've tried to shoot:



After about 20 pics, this is the best I could come up with.
Window on the right, flash on the left to try and highlight the shape of the tin.

DeVore

I like it. You can probably see for yourself what works in terms of composition. The foreground green vegetable obscures the focus point too much. The can could be rotated so the writing passes through the focal point if you get what I mean. A sprinkling of water will give it interesting reflections from your window.

But I do like what you have there, try my suggestions and see if they improve things.

DeV.

FlipperThePriest

DeVore wrote: »

I like it. You can probably see for yourself what works in terms of composition. The foreground green vegetable obscures the focus point too much. The can could be rotated so the writing passes through the focal point if you get what I mean. A sprinkling of water will give it interesting reflections from your window.

But I do like what you have there, try my suggestions and see if they improve things.

DeV.

I agree about the stalk, it intrudes into the photo a bit too much. I like the idea of passing the writing through the focal point, but I also like how it jumps out in contrast to the rhubarb - which passes in and out, don't think you'd get the same effect passing the tin through too.
Yeah I sprinkled the rhubarb with loads of water, must have dried up the length of time it took me to get that shot :rolleyes:

Thanks for the suggestions!

Cakes.

I would have also moved the rubber band down to be more visible or took it off completely. I also think more of the star at the side would be better.

DeVore

Thats the cool thing about digital photograph, you can try things and if they dont work you've lost nothing!

My advice is that you go back and give it another shot now that you have some distance from it and see if you can improve it further. I've found this very useful for improving my "hit ratio" when out shooting as I feel I'm building experience in how what works first time!

DeV.

AnCatDubh

ingredients as follows:

• you
• your camera
• some food
• internet connection
• laptop, pc, mac, or tablet
• 3 days of your time

optional:

• bottle of wine or multiple bottles of beer

method:

1) pour wine or open beer
2) sit back
3) relax
4) immerse yourself
5) 3 days later and YOU WILL be a better food photographer

(ps - note, starts this friday)

beans

Caught an exhibit by Tony Le Duc recently, awesome food photography. His techniques are really interesting, layers of glass used to create floaty foregrounds and whatnot.

I was most impressed