Post Your Food Photography

dotcodotuk wrote in post #15298863
That's a very interesting pair of images.

I would have expected something a lot more impressive from a set-up like that. The resulting image seems a little lacklustre.

I'd assume that with all that space and equipment you know exactly what you are doing, so was the end result planned to come out as it did? There's some weird stuff going on with it and it would be interesting to know if that was intentional.

It was posted to show how these kinds of images are made. Everything was planned, and everything was intentional.

The quintessential California coastal meal. Dungeness crab, artichokes, sourdough bread, greens and nice bottle of Chardonnay.

went for Szechuan food today, was raining super hard so ordered a giant bowl of seafood bouillabaisse, was awesome

Those vegetables I posted a few days back - they now look like this:

alvinkclee wrote in post #15301846
went for Szechuan food today, was raining super hard so ordered a giant bowl of seafood bouillabaisse, was awesome

Alvin, that looks extremely delicious. What types of seafood were present?

marubozo wrote in post #15288913
- Go for an early meal when there's still light outside and ask to sit next to a window if you can.

- Cut some small squares of white foam core that you can stash in your camera bag to use as small reflectors at the table.

- Use a fast lens that allows you to stick to lower ISO levels when possible.

- Use creative cropping. If you're forced to shoot wide open because of low light, which would otherwise give you really narrow (and often unusable DOF), shoot wide open with a wider angle lens if you have one. The wider field of view will help you obtain a little more DOF even wide open and you can crop the overall image tightly in post if you need to.

- Shoot RAW so that you have the most control over WB, dynamic range, and being able to save shots that aren't exposed perfectly, or were purposely underexposed to sacrifice moving to an unusable ISO or handheld shutter speed.

Thanks for the advice, marubozo.

I had tried using fast lens (all the way to 50 f1.8, the fastest)
gone to the restaurant early to pick the brightest spot at the table.
tried to custom WB (and still the either very blue or yellowish tint).

At a gourmet dinner night, I saw someone brought along a LED light bank and had his friend hold it at opposite 45deg angle. He won't let me take a photo while he is done - just by switching it off. I find this action very selfish. But am thinking if I should do the same. Most of the time, those around me are iPhone snappers. Sometimes my galaxy S2 turns out better exposed photo then my 7D, 5D2 & now 5D3.

RAW - never thought of it as I don't spend much time PP my pictures beyond 60sec each

Deep fried toufu cubes

Foodguy wrote in post #15297532
And the set-up for any that's interested. (not illuminated is the bank light behind the glass).

Wow. i think you were baking instead of photographing. ^0^

Jeremy92 wrote in post #15307122
Alvin, that looks extremely delicious. What types of seafood were present?

thanks buddy.... it was an ocean wise event tasting menu so BC clams, oysters etc.

lensmen wrote in post #15307952
Wow. i think you were baking instead of photographing. ^0^

Well, fortunately the modeling lights are only 150 watts.

Foodguy wrote in post #15299205
It was posted to show how these kinds of images are made. Everything was planned, and everything was intentional.

In that case, could you could explain your reasoning with regard to these points?

The left side of the rim is edge with black, presumably from the negative fill card positioned above the glass. If this was a desired effect, why wasn't the entire rim edged in the same manner? And why wasn't such an effect used on the sides of the glass to give some separation from the white background?

What was your thinking with positioning and lighting the strawberry as you have? it doesn't look particularly fresh or appetising and seems to be lurking in the shade. Would you not have preferred this to be lit more evenly, like the edge of the glass below?

Why is there such an uneven shadow lurking in the liquid itself, given the intensity of the light from behind? What is this supposed to show the viewer? To me, it feels like there's something lurking behind the glass, almost as if it was shot in situ and then everything else was edited out in post.

And what is going on with the base of the glass? What made you choose to stand it on the material you did instead of on a lightbox or something similar? You've got all this light spilling through the bottom of the 'stem' of the glass, yet the base shows you the surface it was sat upon.