[jiayu]

FA 50mm f1.4 prime lens on Pentax K30.

Have been playing around with my camera using P-mode + MF and increasing the f stops but to no success. Below is the model photo which I hope to emulate in food photography.





Can anyone advise on how to take this photo with sharp foreground? Thanks in advance.

---------- Post added 02-18-14 at 09:17 PM ----------

Here are my random shots of rainbow cake using various f stops without success.

F5.6



F1.8



F2.2

[BrianR]

The stuff in focus is in a plane (roughly). In the burger picture, they keep the front of the burger in that plane by being close to 'eye-level' with it (so it's parallel with the sensor), and also arranging the front of the fries to be in the same plane. Note you have most of the front of the cake in focus in your f/2.2 picture, if you'd moved the camera down a little more you could get all of it. I've attached a little graphic, imagine the frog and the bug are food (and they will be to some people or snakes). By rearranging your subjects, you can get more in focus and still use a wide aperture to get an out of focus background.

Controlling the distance to the background will also go a long way here, and can let you stop down a little more to get more of the food in focus and also use your lens where it's sharpest (definitely stay above f/2.0 with the FA50/1.4 if you want any hope of hitting 'scary sharp').

Don't be shy about taking a few pictures with the same settings but moving the focus point slightly, with such a narrow DoF you're after it's tough to hit it dead on until you've had tons of practice. I wish 'focus bracketing' was a standard feature! A tripod is also preferable here.

The lighting is also pretty important for the look in the burger shot. Try window light from behind with reflectors placed around the front to brighten it up. Yours also look a little underexposed, the plate looks like it should be white but it looks too grey.

Best of luck

[Gaberlunzi]

That lens is sharpest at F4 (according to photozone.de). In your F5.6 photo, it appears you are focused on the plate, not the pie. You could try focusing a little closer, and if the depth of field is too shallow, then you could stick with an arrangement like in your F2.2 shot.

[Woolcott]

The stuff in focus is in a plane (roughly). In the burger picture, they keep the front of the burger in that plane by being close to 'eye-level' with it (so it's parallel with the sensor), and also arranging the front of the fries to be in the same plane. Note you have most of the front of the cake in focus in your f/2.2 picture, if you'd moved the camera down a little more you could get all of it. I've attached a little graphic, imagine the frog and the bug are food (and they will be to some people or snakes). By rearranging your subjects, you can get more in focus and still use a wide aperture to get an out of focus background.

Controlling the distance to the background will also go a long way here, and can let you stop down a little more to get more of the food in focus and also use your lens where it's sharpest (definitely stay above f/2.0 with the FA50/1.4 if you want any hope of hitting 'scary sharp').

Don't be shy about taking a few pictures with the same settings but moving the focus point slightly, with such a narrow DoF you're after it's tough to hit it dead on until you've had tons of practice. I wish 'focus bracketing' was a standard feature! A tripod is also preferable here.

The lighting is also pretty important for the look in the burger shot. Try window light from behind with reflectors placed around the front to brighten it up. Yours also look a little underexposed, the plate looks like it should be white but it looks too grey.

Best of luck

Second this - lighting is vital for food photography!

It really helps to up perceived contrast and sharpness if the lighting is good. Getting down on the same level as the food, rather than shooting from above, can help in this respect too, as it aids in giving a little more 'depth' to your images, rather than a top-down perspective flattening things out.

[Na Horuk]

Hey welcome. I'm not sure what the problem is, OP? What is wrong with those photos, what don't you like?

Generally, I suggest you use tripod and Av mode, ISO100 and f8, 2 sec timer. Next you probably want to set up lighting such that it is not "straight on" (the onboard flash does this), because that makes the food look flat (two-dimensional instead of three-dimensional) You need some shadows there, so its great if you can have the light source coming from the side, rather than from straight behind the lens. If you are using a flash you might also want to use a diffuser to make the light softer.
If I were you I would also try a wider angle lens like DA 35mm (maybe even the limited macro) so you can get closer to the food and have less empty space around it.

The other thing is that food photography is essentially one big lie. Usually they set up the food in a photogenic way, they often use raw meat painted with caramel (because that look better than actual meat), they spray things on the bun to make it look more crispy and three-dimensional, they add smoke to make the food appear piping hot (often its just a guy blowing cigarette smoke at the food just before the shot is taken), sometimes the vegetables used are frozen (because frozen ones look crispy and vibrant, just remove any ice crystals).. so if you want your photos to look like pro food photographer photos in chain restaurants and such, you will have to get really creative.

[Deedee]

The light you are shooting at, looks like very low light.

Also take a digital preview of the photo before shooting. It helps getting some measure or how a picture would look like.

and f8

At F8, he might end up with everything sharp. For a good background blurr, he might have to open up.

[sholtzma]

What Na Horuk said. Also, some food photographers use water droplets or glycerine to create shine on parts of the food that look better shiny.

[stevebrot]

A few things general guidelines and things to remember:

• Depth of field decreases with distance
• The minimum focus distance for your FA 50/1.4 may not be adequate for this type of work without some help (extension tubes)
• Auto focus is not your friend if you need fine control of the point of focus
• The eye "expects" that leading edges will be in focus and is more forgiving of trailing edges being not so
• Maximum depth of field for a given subject will be attained when the plane of focus (the sensor) is parallel to the plane of interest for the subject*

The burger photo illustrates most of the above points.

• It is not particularly close
• Focus was placed on the leading edge of the bun (coincidentally, also the leading edge of the fries)
• Trailing edges are not perfectly sharp, but who notices?
• Subject plane is parallel with sensor plane

Now, regarding the cake shots:

• All suffer from either inadequate depth of field and/or poor choice for point of focus
• The first (f/5.6) has the focus point on the trailing edge of the plate behind the cake
• The second (f/1.8) almost works. f/3.5 with focus point set at the leading edge of the frosting at left may well have been successful.

Hope this helped.


Steve

* This is hard to accomplish and is one reason why a camera having "movements" (tilt/swing/shift) is often used for close-in product shots.

[Na Horuk]

Oh yes, Depth of Field has a couple rules. I'll try to sum them up.
- Focus distance: The closer you focus, the more shallow the DoF is. It will be the most shallow at the minimum focus distance. This is a big problem for macro photography, because the DoF becomes very shallow (thin) in the macro range
- Focal length: The wider the lens (low mm number), the wider the DoF. A 14mm lens will have a very wide DoF for a subject a couple feet away, while a 100mm will not. With fisheyes, the DoF is almost infinite
- Aperture: The bigger the f-number, the wider the DoF. At f1.4, the DoF is very shallow. At f16, it is very wide. The problem is that a higher f-number will eventually make the photograph unsharp, dude to diffraction. There are different views on this, but generally you should avoid going higher than f12. Depends on lens/camera combination, I guess.
- Bokeh-aperture: The lower the f-number, the bigger the background blur. Basically, low f-number = more bokeh. At f1.8, the background/foreground is highly blurred, while at f12 it will be much more recognizable. This is important to keep in mind. The blur will also appear bigger when you are focusing near.

[stevebrot]

With fisheyes, the DoF is almost infinite

Sort of. I shoot with two fisheye lenses and DOF is the same as for a rectilinear lens of the same focal length. Here is an example from the Zenitar 16/2.8 Fisheye...



As you can see, DOF is only a few inches in this shot, probably at f/5.6.


Steve

[jiayu]

thank you everyone for your valuable inputs and advice. Being a newbie, some of your advice were a little hard to understand and I have to re-read it and googled be4 I can grasp it. Haha!

That said, I have played around with my camera, this time using the advice here.

Before, taken at f5.6




After, edited with Silkypix




Do feel free to keep the comments coming.

[Deedee]

Why are you shooting at 5.6?

That picture after silkywhatever looks overexposed.

Shoot at F4 to F5. Use lamps around. You can also use the flash at -2 if you want.

Cheers!

[pentaxian_tmb]

No expert here, but your color temp is rather "cold." Cold may work for drinks in bars, but warm tends to make food look more appealing IMHO. Again, no expert...

[jiayu]

thank you. will keep that in mind.

[Paleo Pete]

In addition to what Na Horuk said, in food commercials they use Elmer's glue for milk, because it looks whiter, sometimes engine oil on those delicious looking baked hams, all sorts of stuff brushed or sprayed on things to make them look that way. (oil, paint, grease, honey, glue, plastic imitations...) I've never seen a burger that looks just like the picture on the wall of [insert fast food joint name here]. I saw a documentary about this years ago, I can't remember half of the disgusting things they used to make advertising pictures. But absolutely none of it is edible...and in some cases it takes 3 or 4 hours to set it all up. They have food artists who actually carve the little flaky looking spots on things like those baked hams or a roast, or the curly carrot ribbons and so forth. Some of it is painted on...that burger picture is very carefully arranged to look exactly like that, impossible to reproduce if you just go buy a burger and take a picture of it.

Off topic, I had a friend once who told me he went to a fast food place, pointed to the picture and told them "I want one like that". So they brought him that burger. He opened it and took a look, and told them NOPE...I want one JUST LIKE THAT...they could not produce a burger that looked just like the one in the picture. It's not possible. That's because of all these things. Soon as they throw the bun in a steamer or drop the whole thing in a microwave it's nothing like the picture any more. The whole thing is very carefully arranged, and made of various items, including plastic veggies, to make it look more appetizing. But the fact is after they get through taking that picture you definitely do not want to take a bite...

So the point is, don't expect to be able to match what you see in advertising pictures, it can't be done without a lot of knowledge of what they actually use, professional lighting and a lot of time and patience setting it all up. To get something decent, use good lighting, small aperture for depth of field, at least f8, and keep the camera low, in the same plane as the food, as BrianR suggested, and arrange everything so it's the same distance from the camera if you're shooting more than one item.