Tips on Taking Pictures of Food

I thought share my tips on taking pictures of food. And by no means am I an expert on taking pictures of food. These are just some pointers that I came up with, and also from my friends.


Lighting and Flash
Lighting is the number one factor in producing great pictures. Without lighting or decent lighting, you can't get the right shot. Without enough lighting, your shots won't come out either. Too much lighting or flash will whiten the image and make it unusable as well. In fact, flash shouldn't be used at all.

Restaurants and food
Back to flash photography. I suggest that you don't take pictures with flash in restaurants. Flash can draw unwanted attention and can ruin the ambiance. Though I am not a restaurant owner, but I would venture to say that restaurants like people who take pictures of food. They understand that power of pictures and the online word of mouth.

Arrangement and Close-ups
It has also been suggested to me to take lots of pictures in different arrangements and close-ups. You never know which particular one will come out better than the rest. Be creative and find different angles for images. Perhaps, focus on a part of the subject. Learn to frame your pictures in nontraditional aspects. If you are at a restaurant, hopefully your party will be patient and understanding with your fanatical food picture taking.

Raw and Photoshop
Raw image format is minimally processed data from the image sensor. Learn to take pictures in Raw format and then use Photoshop to modify them. This is something more advance than I know what to do.

Steadiness
And lastly and probably the most important, is steadiness. Make sure you have a steady hand in taking pictures. Hold your breath just before you click on the shutter button. Heck, something you might find me resting my camera on glass of water just before I take the picture.

Cameras
I currently use a Nikon Coolpix L18. It's not a great camera. It's a point and shoot that I use for most of my picture on the site. If I am lazy and I don't bring my camera out, I will just use my iPhone 3G camera, 2.0 megapixel.



Suggested Camera
Canon S90 has been recommend by a couple of friends as a great point and shoot. I won't go into details. But you can look up reviews about it. It retails for about USD 400.00. I think I might try to get one myself.

Thanks for those who helped me in putting this short list together - Emiko, Tony, and Joann.

Here are some links to more food photography resources
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001451.html
http://photojojo.com/content/tips/food-photography-tips/
http://kitchen-em.blogspot.com/
http://photograzing.seriouseats.com/
http://www.tastespotting.com/
http://www.mattarmendariz.com/