what light, stand and umberella

[formula400]

right people after spending a day with my friend at his work and seeing what can be done i am excited, we are both chefs and he is bang into his photography, and yesterday we got to make a few dishs and get some pics, and even on camera they look out of this world here is the 1st one we plated,


Untitled by lewis wilson, on Flickr


here is his set up,



Untitled by lewis wilson, on Flickr


Untitled by lewis wilson, on Flickr

right he has a canon 7d and at times was using a canon 100m marco and 50mm.he had the light plugged into the camera and was shooting away.

he got the light, umberlla, stand and cable from jessops in a kit for £250, i cant seem to find any deals, but not even sure where to look, i`d love to get a set up like that for my D5000, maybe cheaper but i think having this at work would be great fun and make the food look better than taking with our phones.

the chocolate above it taken with an iphone, and ill post the dish`s once he has emailed them over to me.
but to give you an idea check his food pics he took at his last job. http://www.malcolmcampbellphotography.com/section438864.html


cheers people.

 

[Garry Edwards]

He has used a shoot through umbrella that spreads light everywhere and destroys all control over the lighting - you can do so much better than this simply by using a softbox to create soft light, and a reflector to push some light into dark areas.

And a second flash head, with a honeycomb fitted, would reveal the textures of the food and make them jump off the page and hit you!

 

[HoppyUK]

There are no rules, but as a default starting position for product photography, something like this link, in this position, plus a reflector to fill-in the shadow side near the camera. That will get you something passable, possibly pretty good, and you can build from there. This is basically what Garry is describing above.

Far better position than the front-on brolly shown above, and more controllable, with lovely highlights glistening off the food. Watch out for flare with the light coming straight towards the camera. Put a grid on it maybe, or just shield the lens with card. Always use a good, deep lens hood.

http://www.lencarta.com/lighting-st...ons/catalog/product/gallery/id/471/image/632/

 

[formula400]

marquis by lewis wilson, on Flickr


sugarbox by lewis wilson, on Flickr


dateparfait by lewis wilson, on Flickr


these are what we got,

so i soft box, looking at the picture its what we used but we would sit the plate on the white chair????? space will be quite tight, though and it will be in our small down stairs kitchen, plus gerry this will be my 1st time using equipment like this, and i dont think ill be able to get any one to hold a reflector, not ruling it out for the future but at the moment it need to be quite simple,

what should i be looking at????

 

[Garry Edwards]

Well, those are looking better because the light is in a much better position - but it's still pretty uncontrolled, the light source needs to be bigger and it needs to be closer.

Bigger and closer will produce diffused specular highlights (reflections of the light source that you can see through) and will also create larger and softer shadows. Here is a very basic tutorial on how this is done.

You may or may not then need a reflector - if you do then just get a piece of white card or paper for a soft fill effect, or a alluminised surface for a brighter, more striking fill, and find a way of propping it up, just out of shot. A couple of blobs of blutak will do that nicely.