Beef stew and mushrooms color problem

[redbourn]

Using window light is going to substantially increase the complexity of lighting food adequately.
Combining window light with constant or strobed (flash) light will add yet another level of complexity.

Why not just window light and reflectors?

No additional lights.

It's very popular.

just keep the overhead lights turned off .. otherwise your white balance could have issues.

Thanks.

I got some very nice food photos a few months ago but because I knew nothing about reflectors, they were very flat.

 

[redbourn]

I'm going to be very blunt: You're still thrashing about blindly hoping to 'get it right'. That's not going to work. You need to actually study and learn the theory. This would be no different than me getting some noodles and cubed beef and hoping to produce a dish like you show above by guessing at times/ temperature, etc. I would get something, but it would probably taste like Hades and not look anything like the polished plates you're producing. You're using a lot of knowledge, practice and experience to produce the meals... Photography is no different. There's the theoretical side and artistic side.

You need to take the time to learn the theoretical side; how to control depth of field, lighting theory, etc, etc. The artistic side is coming along, but you don't seem to be putting the effort into the theoretical You know what your set-up was, how far the lens was from the plate, and what aperture was used, therefore you can easily determine your DoF, and whether or not it was sufficient.

I agree with you and with others who are posting similar things.

Plating is slightly different because I think much of that is personal taste.

Below is a reply that I posted to you just now about specular lights.


Have been bettering my PS and LR skills which is good but would obviously be better if I got the photo better in the first place.

I am moving to another town in Portugal next week and will have a separate room for photography with a lot of natural light.

So I need to read up on using natural light too.

I will take a couple of weeks off shooting the photos in order to get a better understanding of the basics.

Thanks.

Here's a good, but short article on using Natural Light for Food Photography from B&H.
Notice the abundant use of "Diffusion" and "reflection" in their article.
==> Basic Tips on How to Shoot Better Food Photos Using Only Natural Light

The same caveats of the Lighting Bible book are at play, except you don't have control over the amount of light which can vary based on rolling cloud cover. And any color shifts based on the window glass.

If you add a speedlight, then you have to worry about potential different White Balances.

Thank you. I'm taking notes and trying to improve.