General Tips for Home Food Photography

24 Jun 10 | By LouieNep in Featured, Food Blogging, Food Photography

There are so many photos of food out there, most of them badly taken. There are simple ways to photograph your food and make it good looking and scrumptious.

First you need a good light source.

A simple desk lamp will do. Your bulb should be a white (daylight) fluorescent one, as bright as possible. A 15 to 30 watt daylight type fluorescent bulb should give you ample illumination.

Next you need a piece of white translucent paper

Such as Vellum or Tracing paper, about 1 foot by 1 foot square up to about 2 feet by 2 feet square. You will use this to soften your light by placing it in front of your lamp about six inches away from the bulb.

Position your food on a table.

Position the lamp at the back (left, center or right) of your food with the translucent paper about six inches in front of the bulb. Make sure the lamp casts a light from the back to almost the front of your food subject.

Try to keep the center of your food in focus.

Use your auto-focus for this. If you so desire you may want to use manual focus instead. Anything outside your subject can be out of focus to give more attention to your food. With your auto-exposure try to lock-in on your subject’s center. The back may be slightly over exposed, the front darker, richer and the center perfectly exposed.

The result should be something like this…

Or like this.

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http://coloredgrains.wordpress.com Kausambi

Good tutorial. I will try it this time when I am clicking my pictures.
http://www.foodbloggers.net LouieNep

Thank you Kausambi. You have a nice colorful blog. Your pictures look good. I hope your pictures come out nice and you enjoy using the tips in the article.
Meowiesfoodies

awesome! i do the same thing and I always use manual settings. THanks for sharing this one!
LouieNep

Thank you for commenting. I hope you get good results from the technique. I'll be discussing other forms of lighting later on.
Howitzerdaniels

Wow really informative. I love looking at pictures of food but really cant make my shots the way i like them even with a good camera. This would really help.
LouieNep

I'm glad this post is of help to you- I hope your pictures come out good! I'll be talking more about different methods later on. Thanks!
http://www.foodbloggers.net/taking-awesome-food-pictures-using-stuff-from-your-kitchen/ Taking Awesome Food Pictures Using Stuff From Your Kitchen | Food Bloggers : On Food Blogs and Food Blogging

[...] Your light source can be the light shining through a window or the simple desk lamp discussed recently in General Tips for Home Food Photography. [...]
Beth

How do you take a photograph like those pictured above that look like the image is floating? What kind of background do you set your food on to get that look?
LouieNep

Hi Beth,

Thank you for asking. Basically you build a white seamless background by using a white board or cloth that you can keep curved at the back so that your (white) background is seamless, no corners.

This should work with almost any color but will work better with light colors and will work best with white. This may work with black too but lighting may be trickier.

Light up your background as well as your subject and you should have a floating like look to your picture.

HTH. If you have any questions please ask I will be happy to help you.
http://thefoodscout.tumblr.com/ Jillian Bantang

Great tips! Thank you for sharing this!