I can only post the instructions not the photos. Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Sat, Jul 11, 09 at 17:18 Food Photo Tips: Part I - Lighting Hi everyone. Here I hope to be able pass on a few useful hints about photographing food. Im just another self-taught hobby photographer, but after taking these photos nearly daily over a period of several years I've established some norms for myself in how to go about taking pictures of food. Assuming that most people will be using a point and shoot digital camera, I'll leave the DSLR (digital single lens reflex) cameras for the time being. The basics about lighting and positioning will apply to both types of cameras. If you're an occasional photographer and haven't read your camera instruction book and understood all the creative possibilities available with your camera don't feel bad, since many people never get around to it either. But I will go over some of the important menu icons and shooting modes that will make a big difference in your pictures once you learn to use them. But first let's get down to what is one of the most important factors in taking food photos: LIGHTING. Light is what defines the shape of an object and is the one factor which can make the difference between a beautiful photograph, an ordinary one, or a downright bad one. Finding or creating the right lighting for what you want to shoot should be your number one concern, especially with food, which can look really unappetizing when photographed in the wrong light, such as flash, or heavenly when seen in a good light. The ideal lighting for tabletop photography, especially food, is natural daylight. But there's a problem when people are wanting to take pictures of their dinner, which is usually an evening meal and in winter especially, a time of day when it is dark. DAYLIGHT For the moment though, let's look at one good daylight setup. Perhaps you're baking bread or cakes during the day, or canning and want to show off your work. Finding the right window in your house is important. Try to find one which is not in full sunshine at picture taking time. There should be indirect light and you should be able to put a table near or under that window, which could be curtained with a thin net if the light is too strong. Most of the time the quality of your photo will depend on finding that window where the light is right. If the window is too high so light doesnt fall on the subject, get a few books, take out a kitchen drawer and top it with a tray and a cloth to raise up your food plate. Position your camera facing towards the window and pointing down at the subject. FIG 1. (I'll call the plate of food the subject...okay?) If you can mount the camera on a tripod you will have less chance of camera shake although nowadays most cameras have IS (image stabilization) incorporated. Still you are in better control with your hands free, and even more so if you invest in a cable release. Thats a little cord that plugs into the camera with a plunger on the end. Pressing that instead of the camera shutter release button lessens the possibility that you jerk the camera when you shoot. Cable releases are not an expensive extra item and are nice to use. The light should come down through the window and skim across the food, bringing out the texture. FIG. 2 Using your optical zoom (not digital zoom) close in a little on the plate until you have it filling your LCD screen or viewfinder. Fig. 3 & 4 show the unzoomed image in the camera and Fig. 5 shows the zoomed image. You are better off moving the tripod back and away from the table a little and then using the zoom to get closer than if you were to stick the camera right up close to the subject. Getting too close will make a distorted picture. You may get that potato in the front line filling up half your picture, while the rest of the plate seems to be falling away at an angle. Move back and zoom in to avoid distortion. How high you want to have the camera is up to you. If you want to show the plate from the same angle as someone who is sitting down to dine, then have the camera at that height, so you can show whats on the plate. If you are looking more for an art photo at a low angle then get down and take it from a low side angle. Its up to you how much of the food you want to display. You can always crop out a lot of the plate with post editing if you only want to give a closeup impression of a dinner without showing every carrot or pea on the plate. But we can talk about that later. For now youre still setting up the camera. Be careful of too much hard reflection bouncing off any liquid on the plate.You may have to adjust the tripod or move the plate. You may have to turn the plate to avoid too much bright reflection off gravy or sauce. A little is okay but you want to see down into that sauce too, and not have it look like a bright sheet of white ice. If the side of the subject facing you is too dark, then you can easily set up a piece of white paper or styrofoam to reflect the window light back onto the dark side of the subject. FIG. 6 In this example I just taped some white paper onto the nearest objects at hand (a vase and a lantern) to reflect light onto the dark side. You can set up something a little more sophisticated with just some folded cardboard lined with tin foil or white paper. FIG. 7 shows the paper reflecting on the dark side. I love being able to invent things like that out of objects that are already in my house without having to go out and buy professional photo reflectors. But of course they would be nice too! When you press the shutter, remember to press it half way down and pause a moment while the camera reads the light meter and focuses, Then continue to press all the way down. Some cameras will give an affirmative beep after that half press to let you know that it has your subject in focus. By pressing quickly all the way down without that halfway pause you may have out of focus pictures and wondered why. Try and practice with some fruit on a plate or dish during some free time during daylight. Take a few pictures on the following settings. If your camera is like many others, you will have a fully automatic option.Try taking a couple photo on that. Then go to your "scene" modes and try taking a couple on Portrait mode if you can find it, (icon is a girls head), and on Indoor, if your camera has that. When you find youve taken something you like, make a note of which mode or scene you used. I know I havent yet explained how to take a picture, but next installment will be about another daylight shoot, taking photos under artificial light and how to set some of the options such as white balance WB and exposure evaluation EV. I hope this has been an easy read and that next time you will learn more. Before finishing, I'll show here a couple of my best photos taken with my smallest pocket point & shoot, the Olympus Stylus 800 with 8 megapixels. I went to a charity lunch where we were squeezed onto long tables in a crowded room. By extreme luck I was seated across from the only window in the room. It was a tall one with a light white curtain and the light reflected down onto my fish in cream sauce and the luscious creamy dulce de leche in a way that I thought was a perfect example of what I have shown above in FIG. 1. The light is skimming across the food into the camera, leaving lovely reflections. Here are the pictures. Just shows you don't always need a big expensive camera when you have the right light and correct exposure. Thanks for joining me, I'll have the next installment ready soon. Sharon (Canarybird) (All text and photos copyrighted)

Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Wed, Jul 15, 09 at 18:24 FOOD PHOTO TIPS: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance Hi everyone! For those who are learning to use their cameras, I hope you are still interested in my little tutorials. As I mentioned previously, I'm recounting only what I've learned or read in the past years while playing with my cameras. But I hope I can help those who haven't had the chance to experiment as much as I have and who are still struggling with the manual. So let's go once more to look at setting up by a window in daylight. I'm continuing with the numbering of photo examples in case I need to refer back to any one of them by number. Side Lighting - Daylight To continue with indoor daylight exposures, let's move the tripod around to the side and see how the subject looks with a light from the window, coming from the left side...(tomatoes and peach haven't shrivelled yet thank heavens). That's also a very beautiful lighting and it has been seen in many paintings of old masters, such as the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (remember Girl with the Pearl Earring) where he creates mood magic with light falling from a left window onto household objects and people. We may need a little practice to get the same effect but here you see the highlight on the left side of the tomatoes in the LCD screen Fig. 9. At this moment the camera is in PORTRAIT mode which is found on the SCENE menu with the icon of a girl's head. Portrait mode is meant for capturing subjects that are fairly close to the camera ....imagine someone sitting on a chair in front of you and you are going to take their portrait. In some, if not most digital cameras, portrait mode has a slight warming effect which is meant to enhance skin tones. So it can also be good for taking food shots. If you are without a tripod, hold the camera firmly and brace your elbows against your sides, remembering to press the shutter button halfway to let the camera focus, then smoothly press the rest of the way down. Fig. 10 shows a short tripod good for tabletop photos. At this short distance, there will be some slight distortion of the subject. If my table were a little longer I would probably move the camera back a little and zoom in. Fig. 11 shows the same with a piece of white paper at the right to reflect light onto the dark side. You can see the difference it makes in Fig. 12 where the paper was removed. Look especially at the plate underneath the bowl. Where it is bright in the first photo, it is shadowy in the second. I would need a taller piece of white board or foam to be sure and get the bright reflection on the contents of the bowl as well, although you do see some light reflected on the tomato. Since the camera is so near to the subject I would stay in PORTRAIT mode and add an option to the camera setting by clicking on my TULIP ICON which activates MACRO. (Have I scared you with this?) Sorry. Macro can come later then, but if you have seen that little tulip on the back of your camera,.... well as long as you know that it's for taking closeup photos. It can usually be added in to most other camera settings.Fig. 13 shows the photo the camera took at that position on the tabletop tripod. WHITE BALANCE or WB You may have seen WB or AWB somewhere on your camera menu as you were searching for something else. It's a pretty important part of setting up your camera for taking photos in all light conditions. Nowadays however digital cameras are pretty smart and with SCENE modes, the manufacturers have tried to think of every possible photo situation you may have, from night shots and fireworks to cuisine and have programmed those settings into the camera. However nothing can equal the human eye and cameras sometimes misjudge the type of light in a scene. That's why as well as the always present AUTO, you have adjustable options for telling the camera what type of light you have. Fig. 14 shows the window setup using a normal tripod and the camera in Portrait mode. I'm going to take some photos to demonstrate WHITE BALANCE. In Fig. 15 you see what comes up after I press the MENU option on my little Olympus Stylus 800. You see the letters WB as the bottom option. Pressing the bottom button would bring up the White Balance menu. Fig. 16 shows that WB menu open on my other camera, and there you see there are seven options to choose from. (Oops....you can see my messy desk.) AUTO - not hard to figure that out. You let the camera decide what the light temperature is... (warm to cool). SUNNY - with a sun icon, this is one outdoor setting to choose when you have sun and want to be sure the camera knows that. CLOUDY - with a cloud icon, this option is also for overcast skies but is nice to use indoors by a window like this one when the light is not too strong. I nearly always take my food photos indoors by a window with CLOUDY as the white balance setting. BULB - with a light bulb icon, this is the setting to use under an incandescent, standard light bulb. Failure to use this setting in evening photos under lamplight will result in the photo having an orange hue. Using it in daylight will give a strong blue cast to your picture. FLUORESCENT 1, 2 & 3 - If you've seen and wondered what these centipede icons are on your camera, now you know. Someone had the bright (no pun intended) idea that a fluorescent bulb icon should look like this. Well whatever, we have to accept that it represents fluorescent bulbs. There are three on my cameras, denoting different temperatures of fluorescent bulbs. I find that the first is warm and adds a nice cosy glow to a photo, despite that it may be daylight with no light bulb in sight. The second appears more neutral and the third adds a mauve cast to a photo. I'm speaking now of a comparison of the effects that setting has in a daylight situation. If you are in an office or shop where there is fluorescent lighting, you could perhaps find your white balance menu and try out those three options. The nice thing is that you can see the difference in your viewfinder while you scroll through them before taking a photo. AWB...stand for auto white balance, which you may see on a screen or in a menu. I've taken some photos to demonstrate these differences in white balance. I will leave the first seven as thumbnails. But you see as they are a little darker, the differences in the colour temperatures of the WB settings are quite pronounced. They follow the order of my list above, starting with AUTO and ending with FLUORESCENT 3. You see the heavy blue of photo 4 in both series. That's the result of using the incandescent bulb setting when you are actually photographing with daylight. It's the correct setting however for under a lightbulb when no daylight is present. 1. Auto 2. Sunny 3. Cloudy 4. Incandescent lightbulb 5. Fluorescent 1 (warm) 6. Fluorescent 2 (neutral) 7. Fluorescent 3 (mauve cast) The next series of seven photos are full size, with the camera setup just as in Fig. 14, using a white paper SWEEP (that comes later) as a seamless background. I've also increased the EV ...( exposure value or exposure compensation) a little to brighten the pictures and give the 'heavenly' effect to the backlight. (EV comes later too...don't get scared.) Since I've raised the exposure value (opened up the lens a bit more) the following photos are quite bright and the differences in the white balance is not so noticeable: Well I hope this hasn't been too much at once. If so, please just ask me to slow down or explain anything that's not clear. Next time we'll get into lighting by artificial light, how to use a sweep (other than a broom) and correcting the exposure to lighten or darken your photos with a push of your finger on the EV button. Until then, thanks for joining me. I'll have the next instalment ready soon. Sharon (Canarybird) (All text and photos copyrighted) Follow-Up Postings: o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by shaun (My Page) on Wed, Jul 15, 09 at 20:58 You are incredible!!! o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by trsinc (My Page) on Wed, Jul 15, 09 at 21:02 What shaun said!! Thank you so much for all of the time and effort you put in to these posts, Sharon. Very generous of you!!! :-) o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by deborah_ps (My Page) on Wed, Jul 15, 09 at 22:18 I've had company for the past month and so have been unable to check in until today...what a treat to see your tutorials Sharon :) I'll be off to the Caribbean this Friday and your lessons will certainly help! Gracias :) o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by sooz (My Page) on Wed, Jul 15, 09 at 22:52 Totally awesome and sooooo helpful and step-by-step (that's how I learn!). Thank you!!!!!! :O) Sooz o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by momto4kids (My Page) on Thu, Jul 16, 09 at 9:53 I've been threatening to take a photography class, but no one gives a class way out where I live! This is SOOOOO perfect and completely addresses my needs! Sharon, you are so patient and so amazing! I feel like you're talking directly to me in terms I can totally understand. I am very grateful. I cannot wait to put it into practice! o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Sun, Jul 19, 09 at 13:05 Thanks everyone...I'm glad you're finding it easy to follow. The next one will be about using a sweep (seamless paper backdrop) and how to correct the lighting with the EV button. I think that will be enough for one time, so taking photos under artificial light will come after that. Back soon, SharonCb :-) o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 2 - Lighting & White Balance clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by kathleen_li (My Page) on Mon, Jul 20, 09 at 0:26 Thank you, Sharon! You are a wonderful teacher! Monique told me about the macro, never knew it was there!

Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Wed, Aug 12, 09 at 11:45 Food Photo Tips: Part 6 - Making a Mini Light Box Hi again everyone. I'm back with another entry on how to use your digital camera for taking tabletop photos. This time I'm going to show how to make a miniature version of a light box, which can be useful for photographing small objects. I'm also working on making a full sized box out of a cardboard printer box which will be used for photographing larger objects, including plates and dishes of food. Mini box (left) Full size box under construction (right) But it might be easier to practise with a mini box to test your results and your skills with a box cutter or sharp scissors. If you have a handy teenager, (or other person clever with crafts and model building, who won't cut off a finger with the box cutter) you may enlist some help with this although it takes less than an hour to make, requires no special skills and doesn't have to be good looking. The idea of a light box is to create a partially enclosed 'white room', with white walls, a white sweep (that paper background we made previously in Part 4 - Seamless Backgrounds), with cutout windows and ceiling covered with white paper, into which we project a strong overhead light and usually a light on either side aimed at the white paper windows so that any object introduced into the box will be bathed in total white light with no shadows. You will have often seen pictures on the web of an object which seems to float on a pure white background. Eg: Cook's Thesaurus. This effect can be achieved in a light box. And it's quite entertaining to see what you can produce from this setup. These last two pictures were taken with my 15 watt CFL desk lamp overhead and one 7 watt CFL spot lamp (that green one) at the left window. Even better would be a 2nd spot pointing at the right window. (I need to go out and buy that 2nd spot lamp...they cost about $12 here so not an expensive item and good for the mini box.) Construction of the Mini Box: Materials needed: small box of sturdy cardboard, box cutter or small sharp scissors, ruler or metal straight edge, pen, glue stick, white paper (I always seem to use printer paper.) I used a small box measuring 5.25 x 7 inches (13.5 x 18 cm) that contained a little desk lamp. You can use a larger box as well of course, but your lights will have to be accordingly more powerful. And I think it's better that you keep it as a vertical box, higher than wider, so that the lid opening will be your ceiling. We can still make the bigger box later once we have caught the idea of how best to create the whitest environment. On my little box I took off the top flaps of the lid and using a box cutter, cut out windows on the sides, leaving a frame of cardboard about 1 inch (2.5 cm) all around, except for the bottom edge of the front 'door' which I cut off. Then I took white printer paper and after cutting it to the size of one side (5.25 x 7 inches/ 13.5 x 18 cm) glued it with a glue stick into the INSIDE of a window side, then repeated that on the inside of the window facing it. Glue carefully and smooth out any wrinkles, which would show up in your photos. To further cover the edges, cut out strips of white paper to size and overlap the newly installed white paper to the back wall and the floor, smoothing carefully so the edges are well stuck down and wrinkle free. Do this on both window sides. Cut a paper sweep to go inside your box, but DON"T GLUE it in, just slide it in so it is removable when it becomes spotted . The measurements should be....width a little smaller than the width of your box. In my example, with a 5.25 inch (13.5 cm) box width, my paper sweep was perfect at 1/4 inch less than the box width...that is at 5 inches wide (11.5 cm). Length of the sweep:....start with a piece of paper a little shorter than the box height plus the box depth (from back wall to front door) and slip it into place until it reaches the edges of the door, as in the photo below. Check that you have a nice curve in the sweep, that it reaches the 'front door' and trim off any excess that sticks up over the top at the back. The finished box should look something like this. Many light boxes also use a thin sheet of paper...often white tissue paper or white tracing paper over the 'roof' of the box and this will give you a soft diffused light. If you are going to photograph any reflective item of metal, ceramic or glass you won't want a reflection of the light bulb in the top lamp showing on your object, so you should then use a thin white material or paper to soften the white glare. If you have a good strong light on both top and sides you will be okay with the diffusor on top as the light will be sufficient. If the light is too strong, then move the lamps away a little from the box. Some examples with fruit: First a sideview of the setup and one example of creating a very soft photo using Exposure Compensation (EV +1.3)... that's 4 clicks up from 0.0... to give deliberate over exposure. Here I was able to get photos using just the overhead desk lamp. If you don't have extra lamps (they must all have the same type of bulb...tungsten or CFL, not mixed) see how you can do with the overhead lamp close to the top opening of your box and raising the EV value to make the picture lighter. This you can do while looking through the viewfinder before taking the photo. A little less raising of the Exposure Compensation, that is.... pushing it up 3 clicks (instead of 4) to EV +1.0, makes the image a little less over exposed and more defined (left photo). With no EV changes to the picture, you would have a normal exposure, as in the second photo. Now you know how to make misty white photos if you wish to have that effect. When you raise the EV value using the plus+, you are actually decreasing the shutter speed of your camera, so it stays open longer, lets in more light and gives you a more exposed (lighter) image. Conversely, when you lower the EV value using the minus -, you are in fact increasing the shutter speed, the shutter closes sooner, letting in less light and your image is darker. If you manage to make this mini light box, try using a PORTRAIT setting, and maybe add a click on the MACRO option as mentioned below. Remember to set the White Balance WB for the type of bulb you are using...hopefully you have a CFL fluorescent in there, and practice using the EV button to lighten or darken your image while looking through the viewfinder. I think this is enough for one day but I did want to introduce MACRO, or closeup photography. If you look at the back your camera you will have noticed a little tulip icon somewhere on or near the round touchpad. That is your option to tell the camera that you want to make closeup photos. You should be able to click on it from any of the other options that you have, such as AUTO, PORTRAIT, INDOOR. By clicking on the tulip icon you will probably bring up three options: OFF, the tulip icon representing MACRO, or another tulip icon with a small 's' beside it. Some point and shoot cameras may not have this second tulip but it refers to SUPER MACRO where you can get even closer to your subject. Try it out....remember you can still be in another mode and add the macro option. I'll explain more next time with examples of how you can capture very close, sharp pictures of food, insects and plants. I hope you are understanding it all and if you have questions please ask here or PM me. So thanks for joining me. I'll be uploading the next installment soon. And please feel free to save the pages on your computer. Sharon (Canarybird) :-) (All text and photos copyrighted) Free for personal, non-commercial use Follow-Up Postings: o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 6 - Mini Light Box & Macro clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by loves2cook4six (My Page) on Wed, Aug 12, 09 at 22:36 Ahh Sharon. THANK YOU!! When will the book be published :) I'm going to be the first to buy it! o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 6 - Mini Light Box & Macro clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by ntt_hou (My Page) on Sun, Aug 16, 09 at 20:25 Wow, I learned more in these 6 parts than some photography books I have. Thank you so much !!! o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 6 - Mini Light Box & Macro clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by antiquesilver (My Page) on Mon, Aug 17, 09 at 19:32 Ditto to what ntt_hou said! And now I'm going to make a light box so I can photograph my silver. Your instructions are great. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Hester o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 6 - Mini Light Box & Macro clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Mon, Aug 17, 09 at 19:56 Thank you again for your comments! They are appreciated. I'm looking forward to seeing your results. Hester I'm sure your silver will look beautiful in a light box! SharonCb o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 6 - Mini Light Box & Macro clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by antiquesilver (My Page) on Sun, Aug 30, 09 at 0:38 Finally got around to semi-finishing my light box - WOW, what a difference! I gave it a quick trial run using an under counter light as an overhead with a thin cloth on top & a POS snake light on one side. I'm amazed that I got good shots without a tripod, although I know it will be necessary when I use a macro lense for the maker's mark photos. I didn't have time today for that, but wanted to thank you for taking time to enlighten all of us who aren't quite in the 21st century - at least photography-wise! Florentine Pie Server Florentine blade detail Florentine Shoulder detail o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 6 - Mini Light Box & Macro clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Sun, Aug 30, 09 at 6:40 Lovely shots antiquesilver! The focusing looks good but you do need a stronger light to brighten up the images. Keep the thin cloth on top as you have done to avoid sharp reflections on the silver (beautiful piece by the way,) and raise the Exposure Compensation (EV) higher...start with +0.3, then +0.7, and +1.0, taking one or two shots at each and see how they turn out. You would need a tripod as changing the Exposure Compensation will probably slow the shutter speed, opening up the possibility of camera shake. I would also check the ISO setting if you can do that. Perhaps that's not possible if you are using an automatic setting. Raising the ISO increases the camera sensor's sensitivity to light, so a higher number makes the photo brighter. (Same as when using film we could buy ASA 100, 200 or 400 for different film speeds.) For sure you can change the ISO when in manual or semi-automatic modes, which show as M, A, S, or P on your mode dial. I'm so glad to see you are trying this out and showing your photos here! Keep going....you are doing well! SharonCb o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 6 - Mini Light Box & Macro clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by antiquesilver (My Page) on Mon, Aug 31, 09 at 15:06 I need to buy at least 1 more lamp but I wanted to try it out anyway & the difference (box vs. no box) is amazing even without the needed adjustments. Taking a decent photo of silver without glare, blur, & a tripod is no small feat so P&S is a small miracle! I did play with the EV but overexposure was a problem when going higher; maybe not so much overexposure as a loss of silver details - another problem w/silver. Yesterday, I realized the overhead light I used is halogen & I changed my setting to adjust for it & that got rid of the yellow tones. I can't remember if I can change the ISO in Portrait mode or not - I've found so many things on this camera that I didn't know were there, it's mindboggling! FYI - it's a Panasonic Lumix. o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 6 - Mini Light Box & Macro clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Wed, Sep 2, 09 at 18:01 Antiquesilver...I imagine that ISO is not changeable when in any semi automatic mode. The camera wants to do that for you so it will most likely be automatic. However you should be able to raise the EV just one notch up to +0.3, or get a stronger light bulb. Also try substituting the thin cloth with white tissue paper or tracing paper. The cloth might be cutting out too much light. I know what you mean about too strong a light blowing out the detail on the silver pieces. But keep experimenting to get the right combination of camera setting, light and diffusor. If you are interested in reading photography books, I can highly recommend this one "Light - Science & Magic. An Introduction to Photographic Lighting."" by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, Paul Fuqua. There are detailed explanations of setting up tabletop lighting with a whole chapter dealing with how to photograph metal objects. You might want to have a look in your library or bookstores. The ISBN (I have the 3rd edition) is: ISBN-13:978-0-240-80819-2 , published by Focal Press. Tutorial number nine will be a few days late this week. Probably have it ready for the weekend since we had a lot to do this week, including rescuing our new cat from a neighbour's locked backyard LOL. (All turned out well there.) SharonCb

Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Tue, Aug 25, 09 at 18:11 Depth of Field Hi again everyone. I'm back with another entry on how to use your digital camera for taking tabletop photos. Today I want to talk about Depth of Field. Depth of field is the area of your picture, from foreground to background, that is IN FOCUS. Here, in the first picture (left) you see the two pieces of fruit clearly because they are in focus. The background is out of focus, or blurred. This is a technique used to emphasize a subject and make it stand out from the background. Here again is another example in this sports photo (right), where the player in the foreground is in sharp focus against a blurred background. (Sport photo credit at right to Allen Eyestone/The Palm Beach Post) You will also see depth of field referred to as DOF in photography texts. In these next examples, the first mug (left pic) is the only one in focus and the rest are progressively more blurred. We can say that in this photo there is a SHALLOW DEPTH OF FIELD because the area that is sharp extends only to the first mug, in the immediate foreground. In the photo above right, there is a DEEPER DEPTH OF FIELD where most of the mugs are in focus. Sometimes you will want to have the whole of your photo sharply in focus (eg. landscapes, holiday pics or full dining table), and other times, such as in some food photos, you may want to have your subject stand sharply against what is only a suggested background, misty or shadowed to give an impression of what's there without detracting from your subject. Although creating a very shallow depth of field can be done beautifully with DSLR (digital single lens reflex) cameras, due to the lenses available for them, (you change the lens according to the type of photography you want to do), it's possible to get an attractive blurred effect with a simple point and shoot, such as the left picture of the mugs above. (I think in future I will call them P & S cameras, as it sounds better and is easier to write). Just to digress and show you what I mean about the possibilities of the DSLR, here below is the same subject taken by a DSLR at left and with a P & S right. You will have seen such extreme shallow depth of field on many food blogs on the web. In this case you see both the foreground and background out of focus, while the second row of the left egg and the right ceramic chicken are relatively in focus. To the right, the P & S version shows nearly all in focus except the chicken in the rear. I deliberately used a very shallow depth of field on the DSLR to demonstrate that a middle plane can be also chosen as the in-focus area. (50 mm Canon lens at f/1.4). So how do you get your foreground sharply in focus and the background out of focus? Here is one way to do it. Let's make a test run during daylight. Find your best window light with a table or shelf underneath and get some fruit, eggs, muffins on a plate or whatever you want to use as a subject, preferrably an object with a little height. Even a couple of coffee mugs will do. Take some other larger objects which could be pots and pans, a plate of fruit, a vase of bushy greenery or even a stack of books. Set your table so the pots, books or whatever are about 20 inches (50 cms) away from your subject (fruit, muffins etc.). Here's my setup for the first photo on this page...the prickly pear and kiwi pic at top left. I sat on the low stool and rested my forearms on the edge of the table, holding the camera. See if you can somehow duplicate this setup and sit low down enough to be able to have the camera just above table level and close to the subject. Set your SCENE or MODE dial to PORTRAIT. Why do I use portrait mode so much on these examples? The reason is that portrait mode is a medium closeup setting, meant for taking photos of someone about 6 feet away in front of you, rather than of a distant landscape. Therefore the aperture (lens opening) is wider than it is for distant shots. (Explanation about aperture later.) When the camera lens is wide open, the depth of field is shallow, which will make foreground objects sharp and background objects unsharp. So that a person in a portrait will stand out more against an out of focus background. (Are you still with me ? :-)) So this is probably the best setting for closeups of food. Many digital cameras have a "cuisine" setting which also adds extra red to give warmth to the picture. Do try it out if you have that option, because it will be designed for a tabletop setting. You may or may not like it but don't ignore it before giving it several tryouts on different foods. So back to the test. You have your SCENE set to PORTRAIT. Add MACRO (the tulip icon) as well to your portrait setting. Point to the subject and add some optical zoom until the subject fills the viewfinder and you are happy with the composition. Press the shutter halfway and check that your focus light doesn't blink. If it blinks, then unzoom a little or move the camera a bit further away from the subject. Press the shutter halfway again.....does the focus light still blink? If so, move back a little again. Press the shutter halfway again and once the focus light stays steady, press the shutter the rest of the way. Now take another 10 pictures in the same manner. Go and check them on your computer. Not happy? Do it all over again :-). The key to good photos is practice, practice, and practice again. You will find that you do get better as you learn and it's a great feeling! The way to get blurred backgrounds in tabletop closeups with a P&S is to get close to your subject and have your background items at least 20 inches away as explained above. The closer you are to the subject and using MACRO, the more out of focus your background will appear. To get a nice background blur outdoors is to have a subject ...such as this dish of fruit below (photo left)....resting on a table about 10 feet in front of a tree and hanging basket. I sat in a chair next to the table where the dish was resting and using PORTRAIT, MACRO and optical zoom on the bowl, took this closeup showing a background that was nicely out of focus. You can have some good effects when you get close to and zoom in on a subject which is a good distance from a dappled shrubbery background where you see pinpoints of light (photo right). You need to experiment constantly. Bokeh You may hear this word used by photography buffs at one time or another. Bokeh is the Japanese term for "blur" and refers to the beautiful creamy out of focus backgrounds behind a sharply in focus foreground subject. I haven't found out why we use a Japanese word but it does sound a little more exotic than just saying "blur". And here again I have to say that the best bokeh comes from the SLR (single lens reflex) cameras, both film and digital, just because one can use lenses with very wide apertures, wider than are seen on a P & S. There are other difference between the two types of cameras but I won't go further here. Point and shoot cameras are designed to take faultless, sharp travel and holiday photos of beaches, landscapes and family events with the least possible intervention of the photographer. They're made to be easy to use although they do have some creative possibilities if one so desires, in both the manual and semi automatic settings. Here are a couple of pics I took with my Canon EOS 30D DSLR where you see examples of background shrubbery totally out of focus so the subject stands alone. And here are a couple taken with the P & S, outdoors with a brass vase on a table about 20 feet away from bright shrubbery . I sat at the table, about 2 feet from the vase, used PORTRAIT, MACRO, and optical zoom to bring the vase closer. I moved my position slightly to the right to get two different shrub backgrounds. Do try to see what you can get using a similar setup in daylight. Best results are when the background has a dappled sunlight with light and dark areas and it fills the screen behind your subject. Use your MACRO and optical zoom or get close to your subject, aiming so both the subject and background are within the viewfinder (or LCD screen.) I think this is enough for one day. I did want to go into some visual diagrams to better explain how depth of field is altered by the aperture or opening of the lens. A wide lens opening gives a shallow depth of field and a small lens opening gives a deeper depth of field (all is in focus from near to far). Well there's always next week isn't there. Coming up will again be more about aperture shutter speed, and the meaning of f/ stops, but I'll go softly and keep explanations simple. It may also be handy to have a quick guide on how to open and set up your tripod. It's sometimes a very frustrating experience the first times you do it. I hope you are understanding it all and if you have questions please ask here or PM me. So thanks for joining me. I'll be uploading the next installment soon. And please feel free to save the pages on your computer. Sharon (Canarybird) :-) (All text and photos copyrighted) Free for personal, non-commercial use Follow-Up Postings: o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 8 - Depth of Field clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by publickman (My Page) on Mon, Nov 2, 09 at 2:34 I did a lot more with depth of field when I used a film camera than I did with digital, and I'm still learning how to use my new digital camera. It was much easier for me with film. Lars o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 8 - Depth of Field clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Mon, Nov 2, 09 at 4:58 Lars depth of field is a cinch to handle with a DSLR, and lenses where you can adjust the aperture ...(f/1.4 to f/22). It's not so easy using a non-reflex digital camera. o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 8 - Depth of Field clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by publickman (My Page) on Wed, Nov 4, 09 at 2:40 Unfortunately, I don't have that range of aperture on my camera - the maximum aperture is 2.8, which is not bad, but not as good as 1.4. The ISO range will go to 1000, which I find helpful, since I photograph in ambient lighting, aka fluorescent, in my office most often. I have been lazy and set the camera to be completely automatic for most of the photos I take of my cardboard furniture models, since I have to fix them in Photoshop anyway. I often cut out the background altogether. I also Photoshop out the reflections made from the tape I use to make the models. Lars o RE: Food Photo Tips: Part 8 - Depth of Field clip this post email this post what is this? see most clipped and recent clippings * Posted by canarybird (My Page) on Fri, Nov 6, 09 at 11:27 Lars is you can get what you want with fully automatic settings then that's great and it's true you can usually make adjustments in Photoshop or other programs. I had some disappointing results the other day with my DSLR in the Botanical garden where there are extremes of dark shade and bright sunlight. I'm going back there again and will use only automatic to see what settings the same camera chooses and how the pics turn out. Then I can go back again and hopefully fine tune my settings for some better pictures. It's all trial and error sometimes in difficult lighting situations. Luckily the entrance fee is just a couple of Euros. :-) SharonCb