Prawns in Bangkok

[santoshrane]

My travel helps me Eat some exotic food. I enjoy clicking pics of food that is dressed well. Here is a pic from restaurant bay leaves in bangkok near praram 9 hospital.

Comments suggestions welcome please....

Santosh Rane
Suunto Ambit 2
GNote 2
Samsung NX300
Merida TFS100

 

[sashbar]

I do not know about others but nothing annoys me more than people posting their dinners on facebook. Why on earth do they think others are interested in what they have eaten this afternoon? The food photography to me personally is divided in two categories and there in nothing between. It is either a professional commercial food photography or cr*p. Sorry if I disappointed you. Oh, and these two pics are badly underexposed and poorly composed. Sorry.

 

[Dinardy]

I'm hungry.

 

[santoshrane]

Thanx for the opinion.. dont care much...but thank you for feedback on badly exposure n composed.. The exposure was at zero while I shot this. .do you think I should have done + stops. .and how would you better compose it.

Santosh Rane
Suunto Ambit 2
GNote 2
Samsung NX300
Merida TFS100

 

[Dinardy]

Thanx for the opinion.. dont care much...but thank you for feedback on badly exposure n composed.. The exposure was at zero while I shot this. .do you think I should have done + stops. .and how would you better compose it.

Santosh Rane
Suunto Ambit 2
GNote 2
Samsung NX300
Merida TFS100

What does exposure at zero mean?

You want more light, so you could decrease stop value, raise ISO or decrease shutter speed.

IMO the crops are too tight.

1. The angle of the dish does not compliment the prawns, also DoF is too shallow. Image may have benefited from some nice soft light.

2. The background of the glass is busy and distracting. Subject obvious, but image is too dark.

These images do nothing for me, but make me hungry.


Also, this is a forum based upon critique, if you don't care much, don't expect much positive response. We're all here to learn and improve.

Anyways, welcome to the forum!

 

[santoshrane]

Thank you dinardy.
In manual mode I set my values to keep the exposure meter reads at 0. So if the shutter goes slow where there is going to be handshake I raise the ISO. Am I doing this right? Or there is a better way to do this. Also I have done vignette to the picture. Is that why you think the image looks dark?

I'll work on my angle and composition next time.

Would it be good if the glass was full and I took the shot?

Santosh Rane
Suunto Ambit 2
GNote 2
Samsung NX300
Merida TFS100

 

[CaptainNapalm]

Nice snapshots. They do look underexposed. Your meter indicated a correct exposure likely because your camera was trying to expose for a brighter portion of the image, leaving everything else too dark. Try setting your exposure metering to average of whole scene as oppose to spot metering until you know what you're spot metering for. If this isn't your issue then try overexposing next time by shooting on the plus side of the exposure meter.

 

[Dinardy]

Thank you dinardy.
In manual mode I set my values to keep the exposure meter reads at 0. So if the shutter goes slow where there is going to be handshake I raise the ISO. Am I doing this right? Or there is a better way to do this. Also I have done vignette to the picture. Is that why you think the image looks dark?

I'll work on my angle and composition next time.

Would it be good if the glass was full and I took the shot?

Santosh Rane
Suunto Ambit 2
GNote 2
Samsung NX300
Merida TFS100

You can raise ISO, or open up the aperture. One creates noise, the other creates more shallow DoF. To avoid compromises, more external light could be used (flash or strobe) I would suggest diffused light... But I have never shot food, so I don't know

Its your decision, just keep experimenting.

 

[C4n0n.Fan]

.do you think I should have done + stops. .and how would you better compose it.

Santosh Rane
Suunto Ambit 2
GNote 2
Samsung NX300
Merida TFS100

Pull back a bit. its cropped too close for starters, get the whole plate in the shot or get in closer.. See what works for the shot. take away the clutter in the background. Eliminate the light reflections on the plate. Use spot metering and place the food nearer to your source of natural light if at all possible and fill with flash if need be. Move the plate around so you can see all the angles and use which one looks more appealing. Drizzle oil on the food to make it glisten. Use a tripod. Using the rule of thirds seems to work well with food photography also. experiment! and keep posting!

 

[santoshrane]

Damn! I never paid attention to light reflection on the plate. I'll try spot next time. Thanx for the good tips. Your guys Rock!

Santosh Rane
Suunto Ambit 2
GNote 2
Samsung NX300
Merida TFS100

 

[Eclectix]

As both a foodie and a visual artist, I enjoy photographing food, but I usually don't share them as examples of artistic photography unless they are exceptional for some reason. They are great for posting on recipe forums, though. I know some people are truly annoyed by photographs of food on Facebook, but it only really annoys me when it is someone who posts poorly taken photos taken from their phone of nearly every meal they eat, often with comments intended to show that they expect everyone to be jealous of the wonderful food they are eating.

Food usually looks best with a warm color profile, so keep that in mind when lighting or processing images. The exception is with greens, which should be deep and saturated. Usually food pictures can stand a good deal more color saturation than other photographs generally benefit from. Also, the depth of field doesn't work because the dish is presented as a whole, but the focus leaves half the plate completely obscured. If you were just presenting the prawns without the other elements, a shallow depth of field might work okay, but only if you do it "right." The drink is fairly uninteresting- it looks pretty much like virtually every glass of iced tea I've ever seen, so while it may have tasted fantastic, there's nothing particularly special about it to warrant a photograph.

One great way to light food is with a bounced strobe if you have a hot shoe mounted strobe. Consider pointing it at a wall so that the light comes in from the side. If no wall is available (you don't want to blind someone at the table next to you, etc.) try using a napkin or menu to bounce the light from instead.

And do keep the background in mind. Generally, less busy is better. Especially avoid distracting splashes of color. Try moving to change your perspective in order to get the best possible angle for light and background. The food should be the most vivid thing in the shot.

 

[The_Traveler]

To generalize on what these guys said, whenever you are intent on photographing a dark object that is relatively small in the field against a bright background and your meter is reading the entire field, the meter will give you readings that will expose the brightness as medium grey and thus underexpose the dark object.

See this thread for an example

So overexpose according to the meter.