Food photography

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the light setup

trigger flash and monopod support

My only comment, Markus, is to be careful with your perspective and orientation. In the shots above, things feel a bit like they're sliding downhill, if you follow me. Sometimes that's easier to handle if you use a slightly lower camera angle. Also, if you have time to experiment, consider getting that shoot-through umbrella a bit more behind the food (for "short" lighting), and then bring along some white card stock, foam core, or another reflector to help fill shadows.

By getting the light lower, it will show more of the food's textures, and add some more dimensionality to it. But it will also cause deeper shadows on the side closer to you, which is where the reflector(s) come in. Have fun! Sounds like a really interesting project.

Matt, good observations and advice, thanks alot. I will have more space at the restaurant for the umbrella and will also try to take some shots at a much lower angle as well to make the food look more "heroic". I should mention again that I have learned my first steps into food photography from Brooks Short fantastic tutorials on food lighting here on pnet, thanks!

Matt provides some good advice - I really could not add more.

Hi Markus and Gang-

I've never done anything like this, but I'm wondering what kind of effect on the perspective of the subject a slightly more telephoto lens would have? I'm thinking of this in comparison to portraiture (something else I cannot speak about with any sort of authority at all...) where although lots of portraiture is done with a 50mm lens, more often is it shot with lenses between 70-135mm, correct? (I'm leaving the crop factor sensor part of the equation out of this inquiry.) With the longer lens you'd have to back away from the subject more, but how would that affect, say, the viewed shapes of the plates? Yes, it's all lens perspective, but would the tele lenses make the round plate appear more round, or the square plate appear more square? Telephotos have that tendancy to compress foreground and background, where the wider lenses show depth ot a greater degree. (I understand converging lines, foreground/background, etc.) Would additional tele help at all in regard to, or in combination with, Matt's suggestions?

Also, with Matt's idea of dropping the camera down a bit more, you'd have a better chance of blocking the view of the rear edge of the plate, thus removing some of the perspective issues (ovalizing of a round plate, for example).

Thanks!

Steve & Lupo, thanks, I will in fact take the Tamron 90mm macro or Pentax-A 100mm macro with me as well and test drive it during my next real world cooking at home and use the foldable reflector I just ordered as well. Food seems to be one of the most challenging photo themes, but it is great fun especially because I can eat the result at the end of the shooting :-)

My vegan dinner: wildrice with tomatoes and nuts, banana, fried tofu with chili, onions, garlic and almonds, goes well with a mixed salad & beer missing here :-) BTW, the rice plate is not round here, but I like your idea of a fix Steve.