Food photography is all about getting the light right and style your food in a delicious way…
Almost true – you need to know your camera as well, how to trigger your light, what shooting angles works well etc. But that aside you basically need to work with light (and shadows) and the food when making your shot.
So in this post I will explain a setup I often use because it is easy to arrange, simple to work with and provides great results. It can help you concentrate more on styling and less on the technical aspects.
Food photography – lighting from behind
Setup
As you can see from the diagram below, the lamp is placed behind the food. What you can’t see is that the lamp is pointing down towards the food in a 45 degree angle providing light from both back and top.
Placing it behind (or slightly to one of the sides) helps me get visible shadows on the food. The angle downwards on the other hand helps reduce these shadows to a level which I believe works well. So not too dark but still visible.
If the shadows are too dark or you want to highlight parts of the food you can use a reflector in front of the food. A white piece of cardboard works great and can be sized and angled to help you light very precisely.
When making the photos make sure to turn off as much light as possible in order to avoid mixing sources (with different colors/light temperatures).
Often I make my photo shooting from the front angling my camera down towards the food (as shown in the diagram). Another shooting angle could be direct top-down. In that case you should consider placing the food/lamps low in order not to have to climb the table each time you make photos.
Equipment
The good thing about this setup is that the need for gear is limited with camera, lamp and softbox being the essential tools. A simpler and cheaper alternative to lamp/softbox is flash in combination with an umbrella. The latter is fine but will not provide the same power, number of flashes and you need to be aware of umbrella bars in reflective surfaces.
- Lamp – I use a ProFoto D1 500W or similar (flash can do as well)
- Softbox – Large rectangular ProFoto box (umbrella as alternative)
- Stand for the lamp
- Reflector – anything white/silver which is stable and easy to handle
- Camera – Nikon D800
- Lens – Most often a Sigma 70mm makro lens (extremely sharp and allows to go close when needed)
- Triggers – PocketWizards on both camera and lamp (lamp can also be triggered by the on-camera flash)
When using the ProFoto lamp I shoot in manual mode with ISO set to 100, shutter speed 1/160 sec. and aperture around 9. If I use flash in TTL mode I get the luxury of a speedier setup with camera in A (Aperture) mode.
Results
Below you can see a few examples of photos I have made using the setup – all from a recent shoot with Arla Unika and the group of chefs in NaCl.
A few more links to photos made using this setup: Nordic Sugar and NaCl Showcooking.
All the best,
Martin
Another great guide :) I have grown very fond of my setup with a white umbrella, SB-700 flash and Cactus V4 triggers. I usually light the food from the side with a white reflector in the other side, but maybe I should try to play around with lighting it more from the back.
Regarding other light sources… Do they matter much when using a shutter speed of 1/200-1/250 and a flash? When using a flash in the evening it can be hard to get the camera to focus when there are not much light around. Usually I have some lights on in order to be able to focus right and see the food, and it does not seem to interfere on the final image.
Hi Martin and thank you for the feedback.
It is always a good idea to play around with the light so the putting the flash/umbrella behind and not to the side one day is worth trying.
Both flash and a dedicated photo lamp will be able to deliver sufficient light when shooting with the aperture wide open (a low number). Going up you will need more light and thats were the flash falls short. For food blog photos this is not an issue.
Another difference is the lamp offers “model light” which helps see how shadows fall as well ensure you can focus. Without that you need to have some other light in the room as you describe.
Your setup sounds great and is what I use for mane of the food photos I do for becauseitmatters.dk.
Best regards,
Martin
I could imagine that the “model light” a dedicated photo lamp offers would be nice.
But what I meant was other non-dedicated-photo-light sources.. if it matters much if they are turned on while shooting with a high shutter speed in terms of mixing color/light temperature?
As far as I have experienced due to the high shutter speed and the flash synchronization I am not able to see any mixed color/light temperature (or shadows) on the image, even though several light sources are on.
Hi Martin,
The high shutter speed helps limit the “damages” of the other lamps to a degree where it in reality isn’t visible. But still I would recommend you to have as few other lamps turned on as possible.
For the fun of it… try one day to step back, go wide angle and take a photo of your room and food. In that way you are able to see your flash on the food as well as the other lamps – including the different temperatures. Most likely you will have white light on your food and rather yellow light from the other lamps.
All the best,
Martin
Thanks, that’s what I thought.. I will try going wide angle some time to see the different light sources :)
Regards
Martin
Can you advise me which makro lens will be good for food photography,as i use nikon d 80 (crop factor)?
Regards,
Merta utama
Hi Merta,
I typically use a Sigma 70mm Macro on a full frame camera. So I guess the length will be around 105mm on a D80 which is fine and not too long. It is a great lens… and reasonable priced. Nikon has a 105mm which should be good as well but more expensive. Furthermore you will have a focal length similar to 150mm which starts getting difficult to work with.
I am not sure about the alternatives from other manufactures but check reviews and go for a lens between 50-70mm. That should work fine for you.
Best regards,
Martin