Photographing food for my cookbook

The photos don't need to be THAT professional. They do need to look nice, but the book will sell without super high grade photos as well. Content is the key here :)
I bet your book will sell a lot better, and for a higher price, with professional quality photographs.
 
Let me try and add a few high-level thoughts on this rather than writing a treatise on food photography.

1. The camera is essential of course but it's probably one of the least important pieces for good food photography. There are a wide range of options you could look at--new, used, whatever your preference.

2. The items that are really killer, essential, make-or-break photography tools for good food photography would be:
--professional caliber tripod (not some cheap crap that sells for $50USD and is used to pan a home video camera). I'm talking about something you can put a DSLR on with a zoom and expose for a full second and nothing moves. Nothing. Also, this tripod needs to have a center mast that can invert (so you can put the camera underneath the tripod) or tilt (so you can position the camera 90 degrees from the vertical orientation). If it can't do those things, you're really limiting yourself.
--a really good lens. Sounds obvious. But most food photography these days uses a narrow Depth of Field. Getting a kit lens that has an aperture of f4.5 isn't going to cut it. You'll want something in the f2.0/f1.8 range.
--ability to shape and manage light. At a minimum that will mean a reflector plus probably a giant piece of foam core. Probably a scrim. Maybe your own lighting so you're not shooting under fluorescent or incandescent lights but instead can produce a lovely soft light that doesn't have hot spots and glare.
--the right props and setup. I know of one food photographer who has a rustic table top that she often takes with her to shoots. Got a chance to see pictures of the plate and flatware storage for a firm that shoots food photography as a specialty--they've got a full room of nothing but different plates, trays and props in storage. You don't need everything in that amount. But a kitchen that is functional for cooking is usually a crap location for photography...not enough space (especially if it's actually being used), too many hot spots for distracting glare, usually very little good natural light. Dinning room might be better (if you have good natural light) but the table is almost always too far away from the natural light source and there are usually too many distractions in the dinning room. So the setup you want for good food photography (shoving the dining table next to the window) may not be the optimal eating arrangement for everyday meals.
--means of shooting remotely. Either a cable release or a wireless trigger. You'll probably be shooting a lot of long exposures and to avoid jiggle you don't push the shutter of the camera.

3. Space matters. Good food photography has "clutter" but not too much. You'll have some glasses in the background. Or some spices artfully spilled on the table. Or colorful and hand painted plates. But it's not so much clutter that it's distracting. Try shooting a meal with wine racks behind you and see all the distracting light you get from 50 bottles of wine. Shoot in an actual kitchen and see all the hot spots reflecting from the pots and pans. Shoot on a real table and discover minute spills and a ton of distracting items (salt and pepper shakers that don't fit the theme of the shot, the silverware, the butter, etc.). So having great space/props to shoot in (or a setup you can produce for a "realistic" setting that isn't distracting) is key. That's why your plan of "I'm going to prepare the food and then I'm going to shoot it" is probably unrealistic since you're new to serious photography. Some foodies do it that way. But if you're going to shoot, say, hamburgers...you'll want to prepare about 5 of them. You'll find the perfect bun. But out of the 5 you prepare, not all of them will be worthy of being the "hero" and you'll discard a bunch. You'll need to do setup and styling...some you can do pre-cooking but then inevitably one hamburger is a bit odd-shaped, another crumbles, another is too flat or the cheese melts poorly covering all of the meat (so all we have is white-yellow blob emitting steam). And don't even get me started on cold food (like ice cream or iced drinks)...yikes!
 
Wow, so many helpful people on this forum. Love it. Thank you all.

The photos don't need to be THAT professional. They do need to look nice, but the book will sell without super high grade photos as well. Content is the key here :)

I'm planning to eat my subjects too, so no deadly chemicals. Really, I wanted to pay 500-1k€ for the photos, but I'll rather spend the money on a camera and learn something new (as I always do). It's also great to have enough time to take photos of 1-2 meals a day rather than somehow bring them to a studio (can't really imagine that). And yeah, I'll probably need to shoot more meals after the project is done, so it would be nice to have a "home food studio"

I have around a month and a half before I begin shooting - I'm going abroad, to get some quality sunshine among other things :) During that I will have time enough to study the books you recommended and to play around with the new camera I get.

I'll sleep on it, but I'm probably ordering the D3200 if I don't find something better by tomorrow. I need the camera now if I want to take it with me on the trip, as I have only 3 business days left.

I first read this post yesterday, soon after you has posted it, and frankly, it gives me the impression that you're not serious.

How can you be serious about your passion when you're going to spend money on a trip instead of getting started on your book?

Food photography is more involved than you have imagined, and requires more than just a camera.

Book publishing requires more than a collection of recipes.

Both require some effort at being educated.

That requires more than dreaming.

Work leads to success.

Good luck!
 
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I've done a number of food shoots, and I've never used any sort of preserving chemical or spray to enhance the appearance or longevity of whatever I'm shooting.

Of course, this is less than idea when shooting anything which might include whipped cream.
 
Looking through the local advertising I see a number of restaurant ads where they have done their own photos of the food they serve.
Universally, the food all looks blah, bland and kinda grey.
My thoughts are that if you want to eat the food later then take the best pics you can and then PHOTOSHOP the heck out of them.
 
Just to be clear, Designer, I'm not on vacation and I know it takes hard work to succeed at anything worthwhile.

I've already published a book on healthy lifestyle and there is a high demand for a cookbook to go along with it. What I'm writing is not your average cookbook, but it's rather a manual to crafting delicious and healthy foods from few basic ingredients with an emphasis on choosing the right ingredients and storing/using/combining them in the right way. The recipes are just one half of the thing.

So... I've already got my hands on the D3200. Now I need a lens and some lighting / softbox. Possibly a new tripod as well. I'll worry about the plates, etc when I'm in my new apartment (I'm moving in February / March).

I'm thinking about getting a 50mm f/1.8 lens. Do you think it will suffice?

About the light...can you suggest a solution for <150$? I will be shooting some,if not most of the stuff after sunset.

I do have fairly cheap (but not that bad) tripod that I originally got for my GoPro. A pro photographer whom I just got to know said it was not a big deal as long as I'm not using a huge and heavy machine (which I'm not). Do you think it's necessary to get a pro tripod for the D3200+ 50mm lens? If yes, can you suggest one?

Cheers
 
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I don't know anything about food photography. Just wanted to say it's a mistake not to consider used/refurbished when it comes to dslrs and lenses unless you have an unlimited budget.
 
We cant really tell you what you need until we see some photos.

Now that you have the camera, lets see what you got.
 
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Now I need a lens and some lighting / softbox.

About the light...can you suggest a solution for <150$? I will be shooting some,if not most of the stuff after sunset.

Are you shooting indoors? If you're lighting it properly, it shouldn't really matter what time of day you're taking the photos.

I'm thinking about getting a 50mm f/1.8 lens. Do you think it will suffice?

It should be fine.

I do have fairly cheap (but not that bad) tripod that I originally got for my GoPro. A pro photographer whom I just got to know said it was not a big deal as long as I'm not using a huge and heavy machine (which I'm not). Do you think it's necessary to get a pro tripod for the D3200+ 50mm lens? If yes, can you suggest one?

Along with the tripod, you're going to want a remote release to further mitigate any camera movement.
 
I'm thinking about getting a 50mm f/1.8 lens. Do you think it will suffice?

That probably will be a good start and allows you to control the DOF very good. It's even better for low-light situations. If you can afford it, look for a 60mm Macro or 90mm Macro (which is probably to tele for a crop-sensor). The Macro's opens hole new possibilities and are also primes which means the IQ is very good.


About the light...can you suggest a solution for <150$? I will be shooting some,if not most of the stuff after sunset.

Light is the most important thing in food photography, even more than in many other fields of photography and the hardest part to learn. I would recommend you the Lowel Ego Light, a small tabletop-lamp wich is great for product- and foodphotgraphy. Unfortunatly it is a bit over your budget, so I would suggest to build it by yourself. It's pretty easy and much cheaper. You can find some instructions in google "Lowel Ego Light DIY". There are different options, they work all ;) It's just important to buy daylight-bulbs!


I do have fairly cheap (but not that bad) tripod that I originally got for my GoPro. A pro photographer whom I just got to know said it was not a big deal as long as I'm not using a huge and heavy machine (which I'm not). Do you think it's necessary to get a pro tripod for the D3200+ 50mm lens? If yes, can you suggest one?

A sturdy tripod is a must. I am not sure if a tripod made for a GoPro is good enough for a dSLR. Try it, if it's wobbly, buy a new one. It's worth it ;) Good manufacturers are Manfrotto, Gitzo and Cullmann, but they are not cheap :(
 
A tripod, lighting, and reflectors are fairly essential. Here's a food shoot I did just this past Saturday:


Lamb 2 Crop
by Tim Campbell1, on Flickr

This is shot using my 5D III and an EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM.

I took this at f/2.8 - which provides a fairly shallow depth of field. I wanted the front edge of that lamb shank to be tack sharp and I do have some shots where the focus was just a tiny bit back such that the front edge of the meat looked ok, but the front edge of that bone was soft -- no good, I had to reject those. I'm using this shallow depth of field because I'm not trying to "sell the wine" -- so the bottle is back there for color, but I don't want you to be distracted and read the label. The shallow depth of field lets me control this.

But this means the position of my camera is must be perfectly stationary as I focus. If this were hand-held, the SLIGHT amount of my body movement would throw the focus and the shot would have to be rejected.

I'm using a fairly beefy Manfrotto tripod and a Benro B3 ball-head, it's a bit spendy but it's SOLID and it's not like I'm taking it on a nature hike and have to carry it. I have smaller and lighter tripods, but not nearly as solid. Normally I'd use a remote shutter release but when I shoot these food shots, I set up a bit like a studio (even though I'm in the restaurant and not a studio). I've got a cart near the table and it has my laptop on it -- tethered to my camera. I'm shooting "tethered" so as I take each shot, they immediately appear in large detail on the laptop screen -- where I zoom in to inspect for acceptability vs. reject it.

I do play with the light, and as I shot this in the restaurant, it was an overcast day with a south-facing window. That means I can take advantage of a soft flood of light coming in from the right side of the frame (this creates the juicy reflections on the right side of the meat. But this would have resulted in the plate being much too dark on the left. There are actually TWO reflectors on the left. One is large and hanging on a light stand just out of frame on the left. The other is a smaller hand-held reflector that an assistant is holding to kick a tiny bit more light into the part of the shank facing the camera.

Also, there's a Speedlite 600EX-RT in a softbox (Lastolite EzyBox) which is more or less hanging above (and just slightly left and forward) of the plate). This is triggered by a Canon ST-E3-RT in the camera hot-shoe. I use E-TTL, but I've dialed the flash exposure down -1/3 stop.

I do a bit of post processing touch-up. The vibrancy is very slightly kicked up to brighten the carrots and brussel sprouts (not very much). I do a tiny bit of levels adjustments, shadows & highlights, and some brush-on dodge & burn tool (which is why I love shooting everything in RAW - adjustment latitude is no problem when you shoot RAW.)

The wall in the background is quite a few feet back, but it's a solid green color (you can see just a bit of it in the upper left). I had a screen (one of those 3-section ornamental screens that you could use to hide behind while you change your clothes) and it was painted up with scenes from Italy. I placed that in the background to provide a bit more color in the distant background so I didn't have to use the plain green wall.

This shot required:
Camera (Canon 5D III)
Macro lens (Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM)
Tripod (I'm using a fairly heavy Manfrotto tripod with a Benro B3 ball-head)
2 light stands (one holding a soft-box, the other holding a reflector)
2 collapsible reflectors (Impact brand reflectors with a silver surface on one side)
1 softbox (Lastolite EzyBox)
Canon ST-E3-RT transmitter
Canon 600EX-RT flash (in the softbox)
Laptop & USB camera cable (I'm shooting tethered).

If I were shooting this with a camera that has an APS-C size sensor (I'd be just as happy to shoot this with a Canon T3 or T5 and the results would have been as good), I'd have used the Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens instead of the EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM.)

A camera with an APS-C size sensor (every Canon "Rebel" model has an APS-C size sensor) has a 60% crop factor - which means if you multiply the focal length of your lens by that crop factor (1.6 = 60%) then a 60mm lens becomes about 96mm in "full frame" equivalent angle of view (nearly identical to a 100mm lens on a full-frame body.)
 
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^Good example^

OP- Are you going to post your photos in this thread or create a separate post?
 
Grandiose - do not underestimate the importance of high quality professional photos in a cook book. Why do you think your book will sell without great photos? Is there no competition for you recipes?
Most people who buy that sort of books look at the headlines and photos, hey do not read it before buying. If there are two books on the shelve the one with better photos will sell faster than the one with better content. Customers can not evaluate the quality of the recipe before they use it. But they immediately see if they like the image of a food or not.
I would buy it the same way. I do not know much about cooking. If I see quality photos I presume there are quality recipes. And if there are amateurish photos, guess what I will presume?
 
Thanks TCampbell, nice example

I'll be shooting indoors, but mostly when the sun is already down. I wanted to get the Lowel Ego set, but it's not available over in Slovakia. If you have any other suggestions, please share. Otherwise, I guess I'll have to make them myself at home.

Looks like I'll be getting the 50mm f/1.8G. Looking forward to the sweet bokehhh :)

I'll try the tripod I already have. It's not made for the gopro, I think it will hold my cam steadily. I'll be shooting with a delay, so no need for the RC.

Parker, I ain't got nothing yet. I just got my first camera ever and still trying to learn the very basics. Plus I'm far from home, living in a hotel with no conditions to do solid shots. Here's one I took the other day with the kit lens... Setting is horrible, I just wanted to capture it because it looked good. Tasted even better :)
 

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