Simple and Affordable Tools, Techniques & Accessories to Improve Your Food Photography: Part I

A lot of bloggers and even some friends who like photography asked to see the presentation I did with Alice Currah last month at BlogHer Food 2011. I promised I would put up an abbreviated version on the blog, so here goes. Seeing as we had a ton of slides, I'll probably break it up into two or three posts.

This presentation was aimed at beginning food bloggers and photographers, so let's start with the basics of photography, then move on to Tools.
Next week I'll pick up with Techniques, then Accessories, Composition, Restaurant Photography, Smart Phone Food Photography and and some other suggestions.  Stay tuned!

This is where it all begins--understanding what all those numbers mean. You can't really get to the next level if you don't have a grip on the relationship and mechanics of these three elements.

Shutter speed (T) and aperture (A) work inversely--when you increase your shutter speed (from 1/250th of a second to 1/500 of a second), you have to open up your aperture (which, confusingly, means going to a smaller f-number). 

Just like film speed, the higher the ISO, the more "grain" and noise you have in your photos.

There are a lot of tools you can spend a lot of money on but some will do more than others to improve your photography. One of the best tools you can add to your repertoire, whether you are using a DSLR or a point-and-shoot, is a tripod. You probably even got one for free when you bought your camera. If not, you can get one for as little as $20 at Target. Trust me, you will see a huge improvement in your photos if start to use a tripod. So what do you get for dragging that bulky thing out of the closet? See above.

Even your point-and-shoot has a lot of advanced settings that can help you with your food photography. Try checking out the color balance settings, digital macro and whatever else you might find in those menus. Take the camera off auto if you can and see what else you can do. I found that my little Canon Elph has a digital macro setting that allowed me to get a great close-up of these almonds.

Get to know your DSLR, find out what all those letters mean--A, T and P? You can do a lot by taking the camera off Auto. Become the boss of your camera!

This little device allows you to release the shutter without touching the camera. It's especially valuable if you are shooting at a slow shutter speed--any little movement, even touching the shutter, can throw your photo out of focus. 
Don't fret if your camera does not have a port for a cable release, you can also use the timer feature. Simply set up your shot and turn on the timer, then take your hands off the camera. I noticed mine has several options—2 seconds, 10 seconds, multiple photos.

A fill card reflects light back into the darker side of your subject and they are about $3 at any drug store. Can be foam core, poster board, whatever you have sitting around that is big and white (not your husband though). This can help you keep your exposure more even across your food which means you don't have to choose between losing detail in the highlights or the shadows. If you are backlighting your food, it's a good idea to pop a little light into the front to preserve more detail. It's not always necessary, but it's a good tool to have when you need it.

A lot of blogger friends said that their biggest challenge is shooting at night or in low light since they are usually cooking in the evening. These two lights are an affordable way to solve that problem and will give you some pretty decent results. The Coralife revelation came as an accident when I was trying to demonstrate what fluorescent light looks like. Would you believe this light is designed for a fish tank?  I'll show you in the next post what it looks like in use, you'll be blown away.