Food Shutter Bug Club (Part 2)

[Dakki]

I swore off Sony before they even emasculated the PS3. /hipster

Regarding the P300's low-light capabilities: This photo was taken in an extremely dark living room. Most of the light was coming from a rather dimly lit kitchen (you can see the fluorescent tubes reflected in the window) or from a single weak bulb outside (you can see it illuminating the leaves, I think). Anyway, look at the child's face; that's illuminated by the smartphone her daddy is holding. This thing practically has night vision.

Colors are pretty wacky but in this light, I'm not complaining too loudly. Nothing you can't fix in 2 minutes of photo editing, right?

Edited to add: Yeah this isn't the world's best pic but I'm just trying to illustrate a point, etc.

Edited June 18, 2012 by Dakki (log)

[Prawncrackers]

Fellow Shutterbugs, I bring you two shots of this morning breakfast; a short stack with candied bacon and smoked ice-cream. Yum!

The usual set-up for me, a flash gun bounced off the ceiling. The first shot came out exactly how i wanted it, everything nicely framed and in focus:

The second shot was a bit soft, i must have been moving and the only thing in focus seems to be the very tip of the bacon. As the first shot was what i was looking for I left it at that and got stuck in before the pancakes got cold:

Loading these shots onto my pc, I brightened them up a little and I couldn't help but to love the second shot more. It's one of those situations where my head says the first shot is better but my heart says the second. There just seems to be more "emotion" in the second, more a feeling that I want to eat it again. I admit the colour temperature is slightly warmer in the second but that can't be the only reason that the first seems now more cold and clinical in comparison.

So questions are: which do you prefer and why; and how do I actually recreate something like the second in future because it was a complete fluke!?

[patrickamory]

It's interesting, Prawncrackers, I find the first photo more toothsome. I generally tend to like warmer, more blown-out food images, but for some reason the sharpness of the first photo really gets my appetite going. Maybe it just says "crispy bacon" to me.

[dcarch]

Those are very nice photos, nothing wrong with them.

I do have some personal preferences, because they are just preferences, they are not that important.

dcarch

Rotated the picture 2 degrees clockwise. (May be 3 degrees would be better)

Enhanced contrast a tiny bit

Enlarged the backgrond so that the picture is less crowded

The bacon is more interesting than the pancakes, they are not recognizable as bacons.

Enhanced contrast

Made the background a little darker

Edited September 17, 2012 by dcarch (log)

[naguere]

Those are very nice photos, nothing wrong with them.

I do have some personal preferences, because they are just preferences, they are not that important.

dcarch

Rotated the picture 2 degrees clockwise. (May be 3 degrees would be better)

Enhanced contrast a tiny bit

Enlarged the backgrond so that the picture is less crowded

The bacon is more interesting than the pancakes, they are not recognizable as bacons.

Enhanced contrast

Made the background a little darker

What a pity we don't have a 'Like' button.

Anyway dcarch, I am well impressed.

[Prawncrackers]

Yes I forget we have serious bacon addicts on the forum! Thanks dcarch, i should have crossed the rashers over the other way to show them off better! You know i didn't want the focus to be on the bacon but on the pancakes. I really like the pleasing appearance of the stack especially the top of it under the sheen of the syrup. I supposed this is what food stylists get paid to do; maximise the visual appeal of every aspect of the shot. .

[liuzhou]

Is it my spectacles ( I think not), my computer screen (ditto) or what, but most a lot of the photographs here just seem plain out of focus. And if you can't focus your camera, you aren't going to get any better.

[pep.]

I recently started a food blog (it's in my signature, but unfortunately German language only) and well, what's a food blog without food porn? So in a few weeks I went from knowing nothing at all about photography and an old IXUS 60 to a Panasonic TZ25 (ZS15 in the US, I think) to an Olympus E-PL2 with some nice prime lenses and at least some theoretical knowledge about what I'm doing. Of course, theory and practice are two decidedly different creatures ;-)

Anyway, here's some stuff I've done at restaurants in the recent weeks:







These are all taken under restaurant lighting conditions in the evening, ISO and therefore noise is a bit high, but I do find them usable at least on screen. The focus point on the last one is not quite where it should be, but I liked the shot of the ox tail ragout inside the pasta too much to discard it.

 

 

Host Note: The current food photography topic may be found here.

Edited July 27, 2014 by Mjx
Host note added (log)