Photographing food for my cookbook

[KmH]

And more exposure.

 

[TCampbell]

Checking your food shot...

Grab a towel and clean around the edges of the plate and also the fork to eliminate the splatter. You've got a lot of empty space in the nearer part of the frame (bottom of the image) and can reposition the food a bit lower.

I noticed the embedded EXIF data in your image says you shot that on Program mode -- this means the camera picks the exposure instead of you and, more importantly... it means you don't get to control the aperture value (f-stop) which is what you need to control the depth-of-field. You can shoot either on manual -or- if you want a more automatic mode, then select Aperture mode and dial in a low-ish f-stop.

You can find lots of examples of what you should be able to achieve with that lens here: Full-size sample photos from Nikon 50mm F/1.8
BUT... also keep in mind that much of why you like an image isn't just the lens... it's the composition and lighting.

From that list of samples (on the PixelPeeper site -- which is really just an index of images posted to Flickr that contain the EXIF data so they can find images taken with specific lenses) I did find a few "food" pictures.

Here's one example I found: A bowl of chili | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I'll call your attention to a few things...

1) the bowl and plate are "clean" (very important)

2) the photographer cuts off the left third of the bowl. It's not critically important to have the "whole" plate in... work your image to provide the best artistic composition. But we all know what the bowl looks like -- even if we can't see the left third -- and the photographer isn't trying to feature the "bowl" so much as they are trying to feature the food inside the bowl.

3) they are using a very narrow depth of field... it's perhaps 3 cm from front to back. Notice the front "lip" of the bowl is soft... and the chili near the back of the bowl is also soft. But they've set the camera at a high angle so that the surface of this bowl of chili lies mostly within the plane of focus for this very narrow depth of field. Because this is a bowl of food, the bread on the plate is at a low height so it falls outside the plane of focus. We know it's bread... but we can't see the detail -- and that doesn't bother us because the attention is drawn to the chili in the bowl.

I should caution that this high angle doesn't always work, but it does for this photograph. Usually you want a "forks eye" view. Select the plate and arrange the food on the plate so that the elements you really care about fall within the "depth of field" (the range at which things will appear to be in acceptable focus.)

 

[dennybeall]

Appreciate the complete and well written explanations, Thanks BUT:
You guys are killing me with this food talk - I've got to go to Lunch...

 

[grandioso]

So I'm finally back home and I realized that the tripod I have is utter shite.

Can you guys give me a quick recommendation for a good tripod under 100€?

My candidates so far:

Velbon EX-640
MANFROTTO MKcompactADV-BK
MANFROTTO MKcompactACN-BK

The last one is the cheapest, but I really love the gun-style pointer. It only holds up to 1.5kgs of glass though, which could be a problem in the future.


Also, if you have any idea where can I get a Lowel Ego light (or a similarly good one) in Slovakia (Austria / Hungary), I'm all ears.

Cheers