Lighting advice for photographing food
I've been taking more photos of my cooking lately for my new food blog a chef's daughter, but my photographs have been turning out kind of poor. Basically nothing like the beautiful things you'd see in Photograzing.
Part of the problem is the lighting in my kitchen. I'm in a small Manhattan galley kitchen that is lit by a large overhead fluorescent light. If I don't use flash, everything looks kind of gray. If I do use flash, everything comes out super bright. I'm using a point and shoot Casio Exilim 7.2 MP. I can't go buy a super fancy and expensive camera, so does anyone have any advice they can share with me to improve the quality of my photos?
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Start Talking!
Need a question answered? Have advice to share? Start a Talk topic now!
Sign up to get your questions answered and share advice.
6 Comments:
My pictures aren't awesome, but I know what you mean about the pics indoors. My kitchen isn't really brightly lit, and it adds a strong yellow hue or shadows I don't want.
I just take my food outside.
My husband suggested a lamp and a few white boards for more dispersed lighting, which I might buy and try out...
Cassaendra at 12:26PM on 07/14/09
Is there a window in the house that lets a lot of light in? Try to set up some sort of table right by the window. Food loves daylight.
Also, if you don't have access to Photoshop, picnik.com offers relatively powerful online photo processing.
Good luck.
Michele Humes at 4:27PM on 07/14/09
@ElissaLovesToEat: The blog Strobist is a great resource for tips on DIY/low-budget lighting. Here are a couple posts from it that might set you in the right direction—without lightening your wallet too much:
Food Photography Made Easy: The Lunch Box sort of builds off this post: How To: DIY $10 Macro Photo Studio
I've made the $10 macro photo studio, and it really helped me. (I have the same kitchen problem you do.) The "Lunch Box" takes the $10 studio a bit further and makes a sort of expandable light box that can accommodate different size plates and such.
For post-processing, I use iPhoto (Mac) for most of my photo-editing needs. If you're on a PC, I don't know what there is for that, but as long as it has something that you can adjust white balance with, you'll be in the money.
Hope that helps.
Adam Kuban at 4:42PM on 07/14/09
I'm on a PC and use a not-current version of Adobe Photoshop that I bought 5 years ago. A less expensive alternative that I've considered getting is Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 Ultimate for $79 at Target.
Cassaendra at 8:31PM on 07/14/09
Fisrt off, ditch the flourecent light. Use natural light if you've got it or try some other lights and use a reflector (like a sheet of white board or whatever). If you haven"t already done it, get right up close to the dish and use a short depth of field/large apature; these are cheap tricks that are really effective. Become friends with the white balance setting on your camera, this helps a lot. For photo editing I use photoshop elements, which is just regular photoshop stripped of some advanced tools that only commercial pros use.
sailordave at 9:08PM on 07/14/09
Thanks for all of the tips! That helps a lot! I think I'm going to have to buy some software for my computer.
ElissaLovesToEat at 3:47PM on 07/16/09