Help with shooting food while eating out

Ken, I totally agree with Wilt's initial comments about the composition and I have a suggestion.

Back away from the plated dishes to get the whole thing into the image. Then, crop the image to some other aspect ratio. There's absolutely no rule that you have to show the camera's full frame or even use the same 3:2 aspect ratio as the camera's original image. Taking things to the extreme, you could make your final image square or even hexagonal if you find that it makes the presentation of the subject better.

hm....good, i am in the same position with you big_apple_ken

i also love to take the food i ate in restaurant, and yes 90% of the time i need to use IS0800 or higher, which is bad

mind to share which lens you use mostly at restaurant?

btw, these days i had try to use a table top mini tripod, such as the joby gorilla pad, which is good as i can use way longer shutter speed to increase light. and not annoying other customer by using flash (even if its bounce)

my comments for the pictures are

1) looks unappetizing to me
2) quite ok imo
3) maybe u shud focus nearer so that the ingredients can be shown more clearly
4) DOF too shallow imo, bottom part of the burger is too blur
5) again, i prefer higher DOF
6) not bad
7) awesome pics!

IMO, you dont need to show the whole plate of food all the time. But same goes to, never always show 1/2 of the plate only. Try to balance up more such as some show full plate, some show 1/2 and so on.

To the question of framing on a long plate...you are a bit of a disadvantage in having the food positioned on the plate for eating, rather than having specificed in advance how it should be positioned for photographing! So you end up shooting a hamburger at one side of the place, and cropping half the plate away, which is my main objection...Trimming the edges way merely leaves out detail (plate edge) which the mind easily supplies from seeing the other edges, but trimming off half the plate puts my mind in an awkward "What food is over there, and how does it look in its arrangement?" puzzlement. It is disturbing for that reason! It might have been better if the hamburger was in the middle (horiontally) of the photo and plate, by rotating the plate on the table. Even if the plate was rectangular, the oblique lines of a plate lend visual interest and cause the eye to move around more within the frame! The pork skewer shot follows that concept. The hamburger plate could simply have been rotated a bit to have the corner of the plate centered in the frame, and the corners at 3 and 9 o'clock could have been clipped off by the frame edges as unnecessary detail.

SkipD wrote in post #9798959
Ken, I totally agree with Wilt's initial comments about the composition and I have a suggestion.

Back away from the plated dishes to get the whole thing into the image. Then, crop the image to some other aspect ratio. There's absolutely no rule that you have to show the camera's full frame or even use the same 3:2 aspect ratio as the camera's original image. Taking things to the extreme, you could make your final image square or even hexagonal if you find that it makes the presentation of the subject better.

I totally agree there are no rules about sticking to certain aspect ratios but I personally kind of prefer them to be 3:2. I do see some of my friends with with square photos (hexagonal I don't see very often) but in my mind I would probably prefer use square photos when I am presenting a 'collage' of photos as opposed to a single photo.

As for pulling back and shooting wider I actually do that a lot (but didn't post them earlier) but I find on many occasions that more junk seems to creep into my backgrounds this way. When I am eating multiple dishes I want there to be multiple perspectives so my photos don't look so repetitive. Just for reference sake (not trying to bombard my thread with photos) here's a few wider photos I took recently:

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

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This last batch of shots is MUCH nicer!

You might want to find a nice tabletop tripod, so that you can use a smaller aperture for increased DOF, and use the self timer to minimize vibration.

The mantis shrimp shot could be improved simply by moving the glass and soda can out of the frame immediately before shooting.

samlee860407 wrote in post #9799032
hm....good, i am in the same position with you big_apple_ken

i also love to take the food i ate in restaurant, and yes 90% of the time i need to use IS0800 or higher, which is bad

mind to share which lens you use mostly at restaurant?

btw, these days i had try to use a table top mini tripod, such as the joby gorilla pad, which is good as i can use way longer shutter speed to increase light. and not annoying other customer by using flash (even if its bounce)

my comments for the pictures are

1) looks unappetizing to me
2) quite ok imo
3) maybe u shud focus nearer so that the ingredients can be shown more clearly
4) DOF too shallow imo, bottom part of the burger is too blur
5) again, i prefer higher DOF
6) not bad
7) awesome pics!

IMO, you dont need to show the whole plate of food all the time. But same goes to, never always show 1/2 of the plate only. Try to balance up more such as some show full plate, some show 1/2 and so on.

I think maybe I just choose the wrong selection of photos since I rarely only shot 1/2 and 2/3 plates when eating out. As stated above I just want a decent mix of photos for my reviews so the photos don't look so repetitive.

I mainly shoot with my 24-70L but since I've gotten the 35L I've played around with that too in restaurants.

Anyway, even though this thread wasn't aimed to critique my photos I think you bring up a really good point in regards to my photos having DOF that is too shallow. I actually struggle with this issue every time I shoot at a restaurant (especially for dinner). The main problem is I think I've kind of max-ed out my handheld settings. When going to a dimly lit restaurant a lot of times I am shooting (with my 5D) @ 1600 or 3200 ISO, 1/50-1/80 SS and anywhere from f/2.8-f/4. I would love to shoot above f/4 but looking at my current settings I really don't have much room to move. I guess technically speaking if I change my perspective I could make my DOF less shallow without actually tweaking any of my settings (probably should try that).

Can your Joby Gorilla Pad support a 5D with a 24-70L? If so I'm getting one

Wilt wrote in post #9800008
To the question of framing on a long plate...you are a bit of a disadvantage in having the food positioned on the plate for eating, rather than having specificed in advance how it should be positioned for photographing! So you end up shooting a hamburger at one side of the place, and cropping half the plate away, which is my main objection...Trimming the edges way merely leaves out detail (plate edge) which the mind easily supplies from seeing the other edges, but trimming off half the plate puts my mind in an awkward "What food is over there, and how does it look in its arrangement?" puzzlement. It is disturbing for that reason! It might have been better if the hamburger was in the middle (horiontally) of the photo and plate, by rotating the plate on the table. Even if the plate was rectangular, the oblique lines of a plate lend visual interest and cause the eye to move around more within the frame! The pork skewer shot follows that concept. The hamburger plate could simply have been rotated a bit to have the corner of the plate centered in the frame, and the corners at 3 and 9 o'clock could have been clipped off by the frame edges as unnecessary detail.

Ahh...I see what you are saying. That probably isn't a bad point about the viewer wondering what is on the other side of the plate. I actually try hard to when shooting 1/2 or 2/3 plate photos to frame it more 'symmetrically'. So even though the viewer doesn't know...the other side is actually very similar to the side I shot.

So basically you are saying you favor slightly cropped plates like this:

Deep Fried Soft Shell Crab

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Wilt wrote in post #9800058
This last batch of shots is MUCH nicer!

You might want to find a nice tabletop tripod, so that you can use a smaller aperture for increased DOF, and use the self timer to minimize vibration.

The mantis shrimp shot could be improved simply by moving the glass and soda can out of the frame immediately before shooting.

Oh thanks man. Maybe I misrepresented myself earlier with my photo selection...

Hey Wilt...do you know if the tabletop tripod can support a 5D with a 24-70L? I actually have a shutter release cable for my 5D so no need for the timer

As for the mantis shrimp shot...totally agreed. The restaurant was crazy busy and as like most Chinese restaurants our table was packed the brim with food. Definitely would have helped moving the glass but I didn't really think too much about it since my friends were hungry and waiting patiently for me to squeeze off a few shots before they dug in...haha.

big_apple_ken wrote in post #9800059
I think maybe I just choose the wrong selection of photos since I rarely only shot 1/2 and 2/3 plates when eating out. As stated above I just want a decent mix of photos for my reviews so the photos don't look so repetitive.

I mainly shoot with my 24-70L but since I've gotten the 35L I've played around with that too in restaurants.

Anyway, even though this thread wasn't aimed to critique my photos I think you bring up a really good point in regards to my photos having DOF that is too shallow. I actually struggle with this issue every time I shoot at a restaurant (especially for dinner). The main problem is I think I've kind of max-ed out my handheld settings. When going to a dimly lit restaurant a lot of times I am shooting (with my 5D) @ 1600 or 3200 ISO, 1/50-1/80 SS and anywhere from f/2.8-f/4. I would love to shoot above f/4 but looking at my current settings I really don't have much room to move. I guess technically speaking if I change my perspective I could make my DOF less shallow without actually tweaking any of my settings (probably should try that).

Can your Joby Gorilla Pad support a 5D with a 24-70L? If so I'm getting one

yea, i face the exact same problem as you. as i am using 50mm f1.8 only, my min shutter speed must be at least 1/60(since i using 1.6x crop body), and at most of the time, even if i bump my ISO up to 1600, i still cant get the correct exposure.

the only thing i can do is, take the picture thats underexposed (not too much) and then post edited using lightroom.

this is the main thing that lead me to using a tabletop tripod, until i bump into something like the joby gorillapod.

Since i am only using 500D with 50mm f1.8II, i cant answer your question about that. However, from their website, their best one can support up to 5kg, which means it definitely can support your lens

you can look at http://joby.com/store/​gorillapod/focus/ for more information. I think i might upgrade into their Gorillapod Focus soon too....

PS: i notice food picture need at least around f4 to f5.6 most of the time to give enough DOF, thats just me of course

Yes, much less disturbing than most of the photos of the first batch of shots you posted!

As for 'table top', I have yet to see one of those short little 15cm tabletop units which are strong enough to support a dSLR with the brick mounted! In fact, even lighter zoom lenses can be a challenge. The friction locks of the short tabletops are simply too weak to deal with the load, and the proportionally large front heavy weight of dSLR with zoom overwhelms them.

samlee860407 wrote in post #9800128
yea, i face the exact same problem as you. as i am using 50mm f1.8 only, my min shutter speed must be at least 1/60(since i using 1.6x crop body), and at most of the time, even if i bump my ISO up to 1600, i still cant get the correct exposure.

the only thing i can do is, take the picture thats underexposed (not too much) and then post edited using lightroom.

this is the main thing that lead me to using a tabletop tripod, until i bump into something like the joby gorillapod.

Since i am only using 500D with 50mm f1.8II, i cant answer your question about that. However, from their website, their best one can support up to 5kg, which means it definitely can support your lens

you can look at http://joby.com/store/​gorillapod/focus/ for more information. I think i might upgrade into their Gorillapod Focus soon too....

PS: i notice food picture need at least around f4 to f5.6 most of the time to give enough DOF, thats just me of course

Very informative! Yes, so it looks like I should be ok with the gorilla SLR-zoom or potentially the gorilla focus. Will pop down to the store to check them out. Will help me out immensely if I can place the tripod on the table or chair.

Yes, I totally agree most restaurant food photos ideally should be f/4-f/8. I see a lot of restaurant reviewers/food bloggers actually just shoot with a P&S (using a mini tripod I would assume) then in post add DOF using the blur tool to make their photos seem more 'SLR-like'. Hopefully with this gorilla pod thing I'll have the best of both worlds.

On a side note...I totally do the same thing you do (shot underexposed shots then bump up the exposure in LR afterwards)

Wilt wrote in post #9800179
As for 'table top', I have yet to see one of those short little 15cm tabletop units which are strong enough to support a dSLR with the brick mounted! In fact, even lighter zoom lenses can be a challenge. The friction locks of the short tabletops are simply too weak to deal with the load, and the proportionally large front heavy weight of dSLR with zoom overwhelms them.

Yeah, I was little worried about that (since the brick is heavy) but from the link samlee posted...it looks like it might be possible!

big_apple_ken wrote in post #9800196
Very informative! Yes, so it looks like I should be ok with the gorilla SLR-zoom or potentially the gorilla focus. Will pop down to the store to check them out. Will help me out immensely if I can place the tripod on the table or chair.

Yes, I totally agree most restaurant food photos ideally should be f/4-f/8. I see a lot of restaurant reviewers/food bloggers actually just shoot with a P&S (using a mini tripod I would assume) then in post add DOF using the blur tool. Hopefully with this gorilla pod thing I'll have the best of both worlds.

On a side note...I totally do the same thing you do (shot underexposed shots then bump up the exposure in LR afterwards)

once you had tried it out please post your review here

as i will be upgrading my lens very very soon, i doubt my current one can support it. so am looking for upgrade soon too

i do saw some food blogger here dint use any tripod, but use bounce flash. However, i always found that using flash in restaurant is too rude, hence i dint get it yet

did some search here, and seems not much thread about this Joby.

however, did found 1 thread about it....seems ok, but wonder why so little review of it...hmm

https://photography-on-the.net …p?t=670598&high​light=joby