minestrone

[dishingthedivine]

I have a food blog www.dishingthedivine.com which is my outlet for my photography & food hobbies. i love photography and am eager to learn how to improve. Because of lighting, food pics are tough for me to perfect. In fact, I'm contemplating buying a speedlight 430ex II flash for my canon xti to help with this...

Here's a photo of my minestrone. How is the lighting? Is the photo compelling (i.e. would you want to eat this)?



Thanks!

[edbayani]

the lighting set up i used when i was still into photography was a 4'x5' soft box that could be fitted with strobes with modeling lights or halogen lamps. it had two small fans on the side to cool the interior of the soft box. 90% of the time, it was placed overhead and a little to the back or side depending on the effect that i wanted. since i was using powerful lights i just used small white reflectors near the camera if i wanted the shadows lighter. the reason i place the light more to the rear was the highlight it produced on the food and of course it helped a lot because i had a good food stylist.
you can still make a DIY soft box if you have available in your area those styrofoam boxes. we have plenty here in different sizes used for storing seafoods packed in ice. they are very cheap and light. all you have to do is cut a hole at the bottom to fit your light and tape a sheet of tracing paper at the top and hang it from your ceiling.

[freezeframe03]

I don't know anything about lighting, so can't help you there. I do know when I'm looking for a new recipe that a photo is what will draw my attention to wanting to eat/make it. The bright spots in the background at the top of the photo are a bit distracting, but since I'm interested in how the dish looks.....the food actually looks pretty good if I look close enough. The problem for me is that horrid bowl you've put it into. I understand that white dishware makes food look the best. Try a white or even maybe just a plain color bowl that won't compete for attention and when you put the food into the bowl, try to carefully not get food residue up the sides. You must be on the right track tho cause now you've made me hungry.

[dishingthedivine]

Originally Posted by edbayani

the lighting set up i used when i was still into photography was a 4'x5' soft box that could be fitted with strobes with modeling lights or halogen lamps. it had two small fans on the side to cool the interior of the soft box. 90% of the time, it was placed overhead and a little to the back or side depending on the effect that i wanted. since i was using powerful lights i just used small white reflectors near the camera if i wanted the shadows lighter. the reason i place the light more to the rear was the highlight it produced on the food and of course it helped a lot because i had a good food stylist.
you can still make a DIY soft box if you have available in your area those styrofoam boxes. we have plenty here in different sizes used for storing seafoods packed in ice. they are very cheap and light. all you have to do is cut a hole at the bottom to fit your light and tape a sheet of tracing paper at the top and hang it from your ceiling.

Thanks for your reply! I like the idea, but i'm wondering if an external flash bounced off the ceiling might be easier and produce the same effect? I'm speaking here purely on a practical level - storing a box of this size and pulling it out every time that I want a photo of the food isn't always practical when I'm taking photos of each step in the process... What do you think?

[dishingthedivine]

Originally Posted by freezeframe03

I don't know anything about lighting, so can't help you there. I do know when I'm looking for a new recipe that a photo is what will draw my attention to wanting to eat/make it. The bright spots in the background at the top of the photo are a bit distracting, but since I'm interested in how the dish looks.....the food actually looks pretty good if I look close enough. The problem for me is that horrid bowl you've put it into. I understand that white dishware makes food look the best. Try a white or even maybe just a plain color bowl that won't compete for attention and when you put the food into the bowl, try to carefully not get food residue up the sides. You must be on the right track tho cause now you've made me hungry.

Thanks so much for your comments! I know the whole "use white" and I actually had shot one photo in a white bowl but then ended up exchanging that for this photo because this one was better. I'm going to look for different white bowls. My current ones are square-ish, making photos challenging because you have to get the angle just right so that it doesn't look strange. Thanks for inspiration to persue more white dishes!

[ts10873]

Love the shot looks like it is out of a cookbook. The blurred background keeps your attention on whats cooking. I have the speedlite 430 EXII and I like, but be prepared it goes through alot of batteries.