[potatolicious]

I recently shot some pictures as a favor for a little local restaurant, but being my first time in any sort of artificial lighting (not to mention food) situation, all I brought with me was a strong-ish lamp and a single board for reflecting.

The results were ok, but not great. The owner is interested in some more photos, and I'm personally a bit hooked on the whole controlled lighting, subject photography (as opposed to landscapes or street).

Anybody have any tips or links on basic still life lighting, or food lighting specifically? What kind of gear am I looking for? I don't have a flash, but plan on picking up the 540FGZ soon.

Also, for people who've done this sort of thing before - what's your preferred focal length for this sort of job? I did the previous shoot with the DA* 50-135 and I found the focal length to be fairly ideal.

[Ash]

Bright rooms give more favourable results for food IMO.
Cream/off-white walls and ceilings make it much easier to bounce flash (with something like a 540 on the hotshoe) and get soft lighting that makes food quite attractive and appealing.

Food presentation is just as important however. Then comes perspective, and I'm a fan of the camera slightly oblique but more towards the level of the food kind of perspective for small DoF shots. Focal lengths - I'm not too fussy myself - anywhere from 35-100mm gives me fine results. Sometimes I go macro to get really close up, but in general 50mm is fine.

soccerjoe's done some excellent work in this field (sorry to dob you in there Diego) and his examples give you a good feel for what works for food. Here's one of his posts: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-your-photos/76125-other-sit-feast-life.html

Before starting a new thread you might want to do a search. Happen to remember this thread

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/general-photography-techniques-styles/733...ed-advice.html

[GerryL]

You need a food stylist and if you are the photographer cum food stylist, then you should charge more.
There are also tricks as to making food really appetizing.
Some of the veggies could be brushed with oil to make them gleam (if you like that effect).
You might want to place foil reflectors on the back of beverage/wine bottles, the shape of the bottle/glass itself so it would have more brilliance or luminance.
Continuous lighting could also help so you get the look you want rather than using flash.
There are actually a lot of factors that are involved in this.
Practice, practice..practice.

[benjikan]

I recently shot some pictures as a favor for a little local restaurant, but being my first time in any sort of artificial lighting (not to mention food) situation, all I brought with me was a strong-ish lamp and a single board for reflecting.

The results were ok, but not great. The owner is interested in some more photos, and I'm personally a bit hooked on the whole controlled lighting, subject photography (as opposed to landscapes or street).

Anybody have any tips or links on basic still life lighting, or food lighting specifically? What kind of gear am I looking for? I don't have a flash, but plan on picking up the 540FGZ soon.

Also, for people who've done this sort of thing before - what's your preferred focal length for this sort of job? I did the previous shoot with the DA* 50-135 and I found the focal length to be fairly ideal.

In general food photography is treated just like still life, so it is best to attack the lighting in a similar way, i.e. a small plexiglass curved product table and if you don't have that, enough mini reflectors and space around the placement to reflect the light off of your light sources accordingly. You can either light with flash or continuous light or a mix of both. You should not have to deal with the ambient lighting around the objects being shot. None the less, in every case that I have witnessed food shoots, they have had a food shoot stylist, an accessory stylist, for ice, condensation etc and of course the photographer and assistant and all of the shoots were done in studio. However when shooting location, you are literally recreating the studio conditions at the location. I.e. setting up a huge white sheet skrim above and on the sides of the object being shot to avoid unwanted reflections (unless that is what you are seeking). Anyhow, it is an art, to say the least.

[GerryL]

As Ben has said, it is an art and if shooting ice cream or stuff that melt..like ice, stylists and production assistants don't use the real thing.
For ice cream, they sometimes use mashed potato (so it will hold up for even hours o shooting) or for ice, some plastic or fiberglass or something similar.

[GerryL]

You might need a water spritzer too to simulate condensation on a "cold" drink...or on fruits to make them look appealing.

[janosh]

Don't dumb the images down with totally flat lighting. Life isn't like that.

Food typically needs sparkle, which means you need some non-flat component to the lighting.

A real art director/publisher/designer will evaluate your work various ways, one of which involves your awareness of shadows. Look into them (eg under a strawberry or rim of plate).. If there's no detail in a shadow, is that intentional or due to lack of awareness? You should at least think about reflectors: they can be backs of menus, 4X6 cards with or without aluminum foil, a white apron....whatever...

[Ben_Edict]

Don't dumb the images down with totally flat lighting. Life isn't like that.

Food typically needs sparkle, which means you need some non-flat component to the lighting.

A real art director/publisher/designer will evaluate your work various ways, one of which involves your awareness of shadows. Look into them (eg under a strawberry or rim of plate).. If there's no detail in a shadow, is that intentional or due to lack of awareness? You should at least think about reflectors: they can be backs of menus, 4X6 cards with or without aluminum foil, a white apron....whatever...

I would emphasize janosh's short post. If you can get your hands on Professional Photographer magazine, there was a recent feature by the photographer (sorry, don't remember his name) who does the shooting for basically all Jamie Oliver books and magazines. His credo was: use the real food, no tricks and work fast (he does something like 17 shots a day...). That way the food will look natural and that's key for the success of his images.

Setting: I would try to keep it as simple as possible. Shoot in a real environment. I use mostly a real hardwood dining table as my shooting table. The wood and added decoration are an important part of the served food.

Lighting: One broad and diffused light source to give the right lighting level and one or two lights to gives some sparkle and depth (shadows do that), should be sufficient for single dishes. Often the natural light from a window and a reflector are great. Just be aware, that light temperature of natural light can be very variable and it is very important to get a correct white balance (use a reference target from time to time in your shots - that makes colour balancing much easier).

Ben