Food Photos - Can't Focus on the "Front" Chicken Nuggets

[RegRoy]

I'm trying to take a picture of these chicken nuggets (long story) with the front nuggets in focus, but with the rest out of focus. I'm using a tripod with a Canon 50mm f/1.8 and a 430EX II, and no matter how much I change the aperture, I can't seem to get a shot with the "front" nuggets in focus. I tried super low at 1.8, and then I moved up and I still can't get the front ones in focus. Also, I'd like to keep the same composition of the photo in the sense that I have an image full of nuggets. Any suggestions are much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[MTVision]

Do you want the nuggets in the back out of focus??

Focus on the front nuggets. Have you tried closing down your aperture (high #)? Maybe it is your distance. How close are you??

 

[tirediron]

^^ What she said. Read and follow!

 

[RegRoy]

I'm trying to take a picture of these chicken nuggets (long story) with the front nuggets in focus, but with the rest out of focus. I'm using a tripod with a Canon 50mm f/1.8 and a 430EX II, and no matter how much I change the aperture, I can't seem to get a shot with the "front" nuggets in focus. I tried super low at 1.8, and then I moved up and I still can't get the front ones in focus. Also, I'd like to keep the same composition of the photo in the sense that I have an image full of nuggets. Any suggestions are much appreciated.

Thanks!

I must have been 2-3 feet away. Not too far. I will close down on the aperture and see how it goes, thanks.

??? Also -- should I still focus on the center nuggets? Or on the front nuggets? I still want the same composition.

 

[Tee]

What metering mode are you in?

 

[RegRoy]

^^ What she said. Read and follow!

This ROCKS! Thank you.

 

[RegRoy]

What metering mode are you in?

I'm in evaulative metering.

 

[TampaSVT]

RegRoy:

I'd agree. Looks like you're just a hair too close to the front nuggets. Best way to do it is to grab focus on the lower part of the shot, hold it, and rotate the camera back to center your nuggets.

There are cases where you'd want to blur both the front and rear of the shot to add focus to the center of the shot. Actually, kinda hard to do on purpose...

Here's an example where something like that works.

Rich

 

[MTVision]

I'm in evaulative metering.

I don't think that would play much of a role in why the front nuggets are blurred. Maybe I'm wrong but....

 

[cgipson1]

This is a DOF question... you need to figure out what Aperture at that distance will give you adequate DOF to cover the area you want. You would typically expect 1/3 of the DOF in front of your focus point, and 2/3 behind the focus point (as a rough guide).

Use this..... Online Depth of Field Calculator to zero in as close as possible.... and then play with it.

 

[RegRoy]

Because I want all of the nuggets in the shot as it is currently (e.g. I don't want to see the edges of the pan), would it make sense then to first make the AF point set on the one closest to the front nugget? Would this solve my problem of keeping the same composition of the picture?

And then after that, I can play with closing down the aperture until the DOF is correct?

Would this approach work?

 

[Overread]

There are 2 methods you can use here in addition to changing your angle and aperture.

1) Buy a tilt shift lens - not being silly but these are very popular with product work and the kind of shot your after; only throwing this out there as a suggestion if you are going to be doing a lot of product based work (and of course you'll want to research around these a lot more as well to get a firm idea).

2) Focus stacking. In short if you use an aperture such as f13 and you still can't manage to get the foreground and middle ground in focus as you desire the only other option is to stack the focus.
This works by taking a series of shots, typically done in manual focusing mode, starting with the closest point you want in focus. Then you move the camera a tiny bit closer (not adjusting the focus) and then take another shot. Repeat over and over until you've moved the focus through the whole scene that you want in focus.
Then you download and use a focus stacking software option (CombineZP is free and works well but there is also Zerene Stacker and Helicon focus as commercial options - not one of them is the market leader, each works slightly differently and in practice sometimes one can beat the others) which will stack the shots into a single composite shot with a much deeper depth of field than you can normally get.

 

[e.rose]

??? Also -- should I still focus on the center nuggets? Or on the front nuggets? I still want the same composition.

Um... I think this is pretty much all anyone needs to see to know what the problem is...

Use an AF point that falls on the front nuggets... if you focus on the center of the nuggets... *that's* what's going to be in focus. :greenpbl:

If you don't want to change the composition, then just use a lower AF point that his the nuggets you *do* want in focus.

Then if you don't want the center nuggets totally blurred out after getting the front nuggets in focus, you need to shoot with a smaller aperture, because having it wide open as you do now, is going to give you a shallow DOF... as you can see by your own example.

EDIT: I just reread your OP.

If you want the front in focus and the rest out of focus, then use a lower AF point that falls on the front nuggets and use a wide aperture (like you already are) to get a shallow DOF.

 

[RegRoy]

??? Also -- should I still focus on the center nuggets? Or on the front nuggets? I still want the same composition.

Um... I think this is pretty much all anyone needs to see to know what the problem is...

Use an AF point that falls on the front nuggets... if you focus on the center of the nuggets... *that's* what's going to be in focus. :greenpbl:

If you don't want to change the composition, then just use a lower AF point that his the nuggets you *do* want in focus.

Then if you don't want the center nuggets totally blurred out after getting the front nuggets in focus, you need to shoot with a smaller aperture, because having it wide open as you do now, is going to give you a shallow DOF... as you can see by your own example.

EDIT: I just reread your OP.

If you want the front in focus and the rest out of focus, then use a lower AF point that falls on the front nuggets and use a wide aperture (like you already are) to get a shallow DOF.

When you say "lower" do you mean the bottom AF point (e.g the lowest part of the AF "diamond")?

 

[e.rose]

??? Also -- should I still focus on the center nuggets? Or on the front nuggets? I still want the same composition.

Um... I think this is pretty much all anyone needs to see to know what the problem is...

Use an AF point that falls on the front nuggets... if you focus on the center of the nuggets... *that's* what's going to be in focus. :greenpbl:

If you don't want to change the composition, then just use a lower AF point that his the nuggets you *do* want in focus.

Then if you don't want the center nuggets totally blurred out after getting the front nuggets in focus, you need to shoot with a smaller aperture, because having it wide open as you do now, is going to give you a shallow DOF... as you can see by your own example.

EDIT: I just reread your OP.

If you want the front in focus and the rest out of focus, then use a lower AF point that falls on the front nuggets and use a wide aperture (like you already are) to get a shallow DOF.

When you say "lower" do you mean the bottom AF point (e.g the lowest part of the AF "diamond")?

Yep. :sillysmi: Or whatever AF point you have that falls over the part of the chicken that you want in focus. I don't know what camera you're using so I don't know how many AF points you have... so it may or may not be the lowest one... but definitely one lower than the center point that you've been using.