Newbie learning to take food photos
- Thread starter ntheni
- Start date
Food in the field, delicious!
Have you ever thought about trying focus stacking to work around the depth of field issues? In case you haven't come across it, it's a bit like HDR for focusing. You take a sequence of pictures, changing the focus slightly between each one, and combine them with software. I've tried CombineZP (freeware) and a sequence of six handheld shots with my McDonald's breakfast. There was a little halo around the English muffin (unsteady hands), but mostly it worked okay.
Also, another trick I've seen (on Strobist), was to use an iPad or iPhone as a portable studio light. Good for candlelit restaurants.
Have you ever thought about trying focus stacking to work around the depth of field issues? In case you haven't come across it, it's a bit like HDR for focusing. You take a sequence of pictures, changing the focus slightly between each one, and combine them with software. I've tried CombineZP (freeware) and a sequence of six handheld shots with my McDonald's breakfast. There was a little halo around the English muffin (unsteady hands), but mostly it worked okay.
Also, another trick I've seen (on Strobist), was to use an iPad or iPhone as a portable studio light. Good for candlelit restaurants.
ntheni
Senior Member
Hi EricS1,
Hmmm... new idea for me haha can try it out. Can you post your Mcdonald's breakfast photo? Like to see how it's like to have a feel
ntheni
Senior Member
Thanks Eric, really can't find anything in flickr hahaha Love to see some example on food
BTW regarding about posting of photo hope this link help
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/faqs-feedback/854762-users-guide-posting-images-clubsnap-forums.html
johnhunter
New Member
Yo TS,
U are almost there.....may I suggest you to go into to depth of food photography.
Many photographers may know how to shoot and editing, but do not know about food styling.
example most of the western food is serve in big plate and lying flat. (So how to lift up the piece of meat and let it look great on overall of the picture).
that includes of lighting to highlight the food u are taking. Understand that as a hobbies photographer sometime equipment and situation of taking photos are limited.
The real tips behind food photography base on 3 magic words. lastly the proportioning of the overall photos is also help to let the photo look great and not necessary to be in centre.
here is my work to share with........
U are almost there.....may I suggest you to go into to depth of food photography.
Many photographers may know how to shoot and editing, but do not know about food styling.
example most of the western food is serve in big plate and lying flat. (So how to lift up the piece of meat and let it look great on overall of the picture).
that includes of lighting to highlight the food u are taking. Understand that as a hobbies photographer sometime equipment and situation of taking photos are limited.
The real tips behind food photography base on 3 magic words. lastly the proportioning of the overall photos is also help to let the photo look great and not necessary to be in centre.
here is my work to share with........
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ntheni
Senior Member
Hi John,
Thanks for the comment
I'm one of those so call "Photographers" who don't know anything about food styling and even my editing suck hahaha but I definitely willing to learn more so hope you can share more of the styling knowledge to the bro & sis here Most of my food photo were taken inside dim light resturant, so can't really do anything about the lighting in there. Have been struggling to keep my ISO low in there and prevent camera shake haha most importantly I have a bunch of "Hungry Hippo" around the table!!! So have to do fast shot hahaha:bsmilie:
You mentioned about real tips behind food photography base on 3 magic words. So what is the magic word???????
johnhunter
New Member
Hi John,
Thanks for the comment
Most of my food photo were taken inside dim light resturant, so can't really do anything about the lighting in there. Have been struggling to keep my ISO low in there and prevent camera shake haha most importantly I have a bunch of "Hungry Hippo" around the table!!! So have to do fast shot hahaha:bsmilie:
You mentioned about real tips behind food photography base on 3 magic words. So what is the magic word???????
oh, i suppose this magic word is very common is always use in different type of photography.....just that everytime when we hold and about to press the shutter camera, we tend to forget or left out one of it.
Angle, lighting, focus point.
But the most important key words "Take your time" since we are talking about taking food photos.
haha, if the photographer is a hungry hipppo than too bad....
Food styling! Read a book on it. Looks crazy. No way am I shopping for the most attractive pieces of lettuce!
Hence, I want to call this food photography in the field.
Or, street food photography! Maybe food street photography?
Thanks, TS, for the link to the Users Guide. I'll take a look.
ntheni
Senior Member
You're most welcome
Yup, guess our is call Food Street Photography hahaha Some where in between Street Photography & Food Photography :bsmilie:
Still more or less we have to do a bit of styling to make the food look appetizing in photo but not to the point looking for the most "pretty" lettuce" or most "handsome" tomato hahaha:bsmilie:
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Okay, here is my focus stack example. If it wasn't completely obvious, I literally just shot them quickly and did a test. No white balance, etc. I didn't even get the near bit quite in focus. Hope you can make out the change in focus (look at the pepper and the English muffin).
Three pictures focused progressively farther away, combined in CombineZP into a reasonable image, despite some unsteady framing. I told the program to emphasize the food area, so you can see distortion in the final image on the right edge corresponding to places where the first shot and the last shot no longer align. Proof that no shutter is required!
You can see that I move the focus only a little bit each time. I probably could have moved even less for better images.
I would like to have tested what the effect would be on background blur, but can't really conclude anything from this test.
I'm really curious if this works well for food photography in restaurants, where critical depth of field is so difficult. And, by works well, I mean that it's easy and quick to do at home to get quality worthy of, say, a nice blog post.
First image (near focus)
Stacked output
I actually took a few more photos that were completely out of focus and out of alignment. Stacking with those actually created some halo in the final output, so there might be some tricks, like not including images where absolutely nothing is in focus...
Hope you'll take a shot at it. I suggest shooting wide open and taking a sequence with very tiny focus changes. Later, when you see the images on your PC, you can decide which segment you want in focus and just stack those. Also, maybe you can see if the focus area need to be connected, like the real thing, or if you can have the front food in focus, the back drink in focus, but the rice in the middle be a blur. Might look weird. Just wondering!
Three pictures focused progressively farther away, combined in CombineZP into a reasonable image, despite some unsteady framing. I told the program to emphasize the food area, so you can see distortion in the final image on the right edge corresponding to places where the first shot and the last shot no longer align. Proof that no shutter is required!
You can see that I move the focus only a little bit each time. I probably could have moved even less for better images.
I would like to have tested what the effect would be on background blur, but can't really conclude anything from this test.
I'm really curious if this works well for food photography in restaurants, where critical depth of field is so difficult. And, by works well, I mean that it's easy and quick to do at home to get quality worthy of, say, a nice blog post.
First image (near focus)
Stacked output
I actually took a few more photos that were completely out of focus and out of alignment. Stacking with those actually created some halo in the final output, so there might be some tricks, like not including images where absolutely nothing is in focus...
Hope you'll take a shot at it. I suggest shooting wide open and taking a sequence with very tiny focus changes. Later, when you see the images on your PC, you can decide which segment you want in focus and just stack those. Also, maybe you can see if the focus area need to be connected, like the real thing, or if you can have the front food in focus, the back drink in focus, but the rice in the middle be a blur. Might look weird. Just wondering!
ntheni
Senior Member
hmm...interesting concepts
So do you mean to focus on different area and combine them together?
So the end result will be like you can have more then 1 area of dof?
This concepts I can only try at home cause I don't think I be able to pull out my tripod in the restaurant :bsmilie:
So do you mean to focus on different area and combine them together?
So the end result will be like you can have more then 1 area of dof?
This concepts I can only try at home cause I don't think I be able to pull out my tripod in the restaurant :bsmilie:
Yes -- N pictures combined into 1. The program takes care of the merging if the source is okay. Done the normal way you have a wider depth of field, not necessarily two distinct ones. I only tried it this one time, but it was really, really easy. It's press, move focus a little bit, press, move focus a little bit, press...
Maybe try it once after you've taken your normal "keeper." If I try one on food maybe I can post it here for you to see?
You may not be able to tell from what I posted, but
1) There is a small overlap of focus between each picture
2) It was all hand held (no tripod), but it works fine.
3) Shoot a slightly wider angle than you might otherwise. Allow for some small cropping around the edges.
ntheni
Senior Member
Sure once you try it please post and share it
err... This kind of shot I need tripod... I got a really shaky hand :sweat::sweat:
asthio88
Senior Member
Siew Mai
Victor's Kitchen (Sunshine Plaza)
Huh Victor!! My regular lunch shop. I have been saying (or rather he hs been claiming) his custard bun was the best, not even those of his home comrades in HK can match but you know what, I have just had one that ws really out of this world and I even da-pao 100 pcs back today :bsmilie: Going to bring some for Victor's comment tomorrow :bsmilie::bsmilie:
Btw bro, you can bring out the shadow area in some of your photos like Fried Squid from Sushi Tei, the green looks too dark.
Keep your menu coming
ntheni
Senior Member
Huh Victor!! My regular lunch shop. I have been saying (or rather he hs been claiming) his custard bun was the best, not even those of his home comrades in HK can match but you know what, I have just had one that ws really out of this world and I even da-pao 100 pcs back today Going to bring some for Victor's comment tomorrow
Btw bro, you can bring out the shadow area in some of your photos like Fried Squid from Sushi Tei, the green looks too dark.
Keep your menu coming
:bigeyes: 100 pcs!!! How to finish?? So where is this place that you newly crowned no.1 for custard bun? So far I still like the custard bun from Imperial Treasure at Paragon
I also find my Fried Squid green too dark but when I set brighter my whole photo become over-exposed :sweat:
Still haven't learn how to set partially bright :dunno:
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