Canon Indonesia EOS Creator Kim (@niesukma) shares her insights, tips and techniques for beginners as she guides us through a shoot.

 

1. Planning the concept and picture

Before you start shooting, think of what you want the finished images to look like. What kind of concept or mood do you want to express? That will affect the background, the colour palette, the props used, and the lighting style.

Mood

It’s easier to create a brighter mood with a light or bright-coloured backdrop and props, and a darker, moodier look with a darker or richer-coloured backdrop and props.

The background plays a bigger role in setting the mood. You can still use light-coloured props in a dark and moody image if you plan well.

Bright and airy images will also require brighter, more even lighting, whereas with a moody shoot, it’s also about the shadows.

The shots of the apple pie above, and the cinnamon buns below, are what I call a “bright mood style”. The shadows are deeper and more nuanced than the conventional “light and airy” look.

The colour of the props and background completely changes the mood.

Concept and props

When planning the props, think of what story you want to tell with your food photo. What ideas do you want viewers to associate with the food?

Some directions to start thinking:
- Ingredients used to make the food.
- The food’s origin story or heritage.
- How the food makes people feel.

I often include a drink to support the story. I want those who see the photo to feel emotion, to enjoy it as if it were tea time, breakfast time, or snack time, etc.

 

Colours

The food is the main subject, so consider its colours and how you are going to complement them. Use colour theory to help you.

For the apple pie shots in the first image, I added the green rosemary as an accent to contrast with the analogous brown and red of the apple pie. Rosemary completes the snacktime "story" as can also be dipped in tea to add flavour!

 

2. Plan your lighting

Use side or backlighting
We usually use side or backlighting to bring out textures, shapes, and dimension. Front lighting makes food look flat and boring.

Lighting is also about shadow control

Lighting isn’t just about putting sufficient light on your subject. It’s also about controlling shadows. Shadows help shapes and textures to stand out.

Prepare blockers and reflectors: these are useful even for natural light shoots. You can DIY your own from cardboard or any firm sheet. My reflector is a silver-covered plywood cake base I bought very cheaply from a cake shop.

EOS R6 Mark II + RF50mm f/1.8 STM @ f/4, 1/15 sec, ISO 320

 

 

Without the blockers, the lighting is flatter and more even. Our eyes are drawn to the entire pie, especially the front part indicated by the arrow, which is closest to us.

Level up: Artificial lighting gives more freedom

EOS R6 Mark II +  RF50mm f/1.8 STM @ f/3.5, 1/100 sec, ISO 800

You can recreate the “natural light” look any time by adding a flash or studio light and big softbox to your blockers and reflectors.

 

3. Which lens to use?

50mm is easiest to work with; use a wider focal length for flat lays

EOS R6 Mark II + RF35mm f/1.8 Macro IS STM @ f/4, 1/100 sec, ISO 100

For commercial food photography, we want to avoid distorting the shape of the food, so we generally don’t use a focal length that’s too wide. At least 50mm is ideal in most cases, though you can go slightly wider for flat lays since distortion is less obvious from a head-on angle.

I like using prime lenses for their large maximum aperture and sharpness. Autofocusing in low light is smoother with a larger maximum aperture. Of course, a standard zoom lens is more convenient for framing and shooting videos. If you have a large aperture zoom lens like the RF24-70mm f/2.8L IS USM or the new RF28-70mm f/2.8 IS STM, you’ll have the best of both worlds!

You’ll also want to consider:

- Compression and its effect on your props
A full-frame equivalent focal length of around 50mm gives the most natural perspective. If you are using an APS-C camera, that means using a focal length of 32mm.
A longer focal length can make background props look bigger than expected due to perspective compression, which might overwhelm the food. I had to adjust my props more often when I was using a 50mm lens on an APS-C camera.

- Working distance
This refers to how far your lens needs to be from the subject to achieve your ideal framing. It’s especially important if you are using a prime lens. I mainly shoot with the RF50mm f/1.8 STM, but choose the wider RF35mm f/1.8 Macro IS STM for flat lays so I don’t have to climb as high to get the shot!

Also see: 3 Lenses to Start Food Photography

 

4. What settings to use?

Get the image as complete as possible in-camera
While I shoot in RAW, I always try to get the photo as close to final as possible in camera so that minimal post-editing is needed. It makes your workflow more efficient.

Focusing is important

i) Learn to control the depth of field

Understand how depth of field works so you know how and what to adjust when necessary. It’s different for every situation and type of food!

I personally like photos with a bit of blurred background (background bokeh) because they add depth to the photo and fit into any mood. However, if the client or situation requires the entire subject or scene to be in focus, I adjust my f-stop or use focus stacking.  Some of the latest EOS R series cameras like the EOS R6 Mark II have an in-camera focus bracketing and depth compositing function that shoots and combines the image for you.

ii) Check your focus after every shot. Consider shooting tethered.

This will help ensure proper focus especially when using a wide aperture setting. It can be hard to see on the LCD screen, so magnify the image review.

Alternatively, shoot tethered (connecting your camera to a computer or tablet as you shoot). This lets you check the images you shot immediately in full resolution on a large screen. You can even save your shots directly to the computer! It’s especially useful for top-down shots: you won’t have to keep running to your camera to adjust the settings. It’s a very efficient way to do professional product or commercial shoots.

White balance: Check it on the spot
You don’t want the food to look too yellowish or bluish. It's not just about aesthetics: a colour cast on certain foods such as cream might make people think they are flavoured when they aren't. For a start, Auto White Balance: Ambience-priority is quite accurate most of the time. For better control and consistency, I manually adjust the colour temperature in Kelvins on the spot.

Picture Style: Fine Detail

I use the “Fine Detail” Picture Style setting to get better details of the food.

ISO speed: Know your camera

Details are important for food photography, so I keep my ISO speed as low as possible to ensure clean images out of the camera. I feel more comfortable using a higher ISO speed on full-frame cameras like the EOS R6 Mark II because they have better high ISO speed performance.

 

5. Editing

Since most of the work has been done on the spot, I usually just need to make slight edits to the brightness, contrast, and sharpness during post-processing.

For more food photography tips and further reading on the concepts introduced here, see:
Take Better Food Photos: 3 Simple Tips
Mouth-watering Macro: The Art of Close-up Food Photography
Food Photography and Styling Hacks
3 Composition & Styling Techniques for Food Photography