Still Life Photography

[Chim_Girl]

I need to take some pictures of white plates with and without food on them; wine glasses and bottles of wine, all of which have to be on a white background.

Do any of you have any experience or tips they could share please?

Thanks

[beano500]

When I were a lad.....



There used to be a technical term for that, when I did an O-level in photography. i remember some big text book with lots of curves in it.

Might have been "high key"?


It's a bit like taking pictures in snow. Your metering system - whatever it is - will want to reproduce 18% grey. Your eye wants white. Either manually, or using some override, you need to get talking to your camera about what you want, not what it wants.

Easiest route first - always bracket your shots.

[simpo two]

Hm, well, creative lighting aside and concentrating on exposure, Beano's right - left to its own devices the camera will take a reading of the whole scene and very probably give you food that's too dark and a background that's too white. If that's the case (try it first to check) there are two approaches I can think of. One is to decide which is more important and expose for that; the other is to try to add extra light to the dark bits so the exposure latitude is lower.

Bracketing is a quick and easy way to increase your chances of 'getting a good one'. If necessary, you can composite two images in PS etc. With digital you can also just keep tweaking exposure and checking the monitor/histogram. You could also, camera permitting, spot meter on the food and let the white background do its own thing - in fact I can see a nice soft focus white-out look in mind.

Whatever else you do, good lighting is the key, to make the food/wine etc look at their best - a la Good Housekeeping. Oh yes, and use mashed potato instead of ice cream :

[luca brazzi]

Beano's right, it will mess with the white balance. Shoot in RAW, then adjust the colour before you open the picture in photoshop, and you won't lose any detail in the picture

If you're using flash, try to bounce it to minimise harsh shadows, but remember you will take on the colour of the surface used to bounce....so white is good.

Other reflectors will create a softer light, and could be done with pieces of white polystyrene, or white sheets of paper taped to cardboard.

Also remember that a bit of shadow helps make the photo look real and witha bit of depth.

Like this...?

[Chim_Girl]

Thanks so far, here is an example of the sort of thing I'm aiming to get.

[beano500]

I have never been directly involved, but if your food is good enough to eat, it probably won't photograph well!

Professionals use all sorts of tricks to make what looks like food appear very tasty.

Bear in mind that by the time your lighting is sorted the ice cream will have melted or the souffle collapsed. I think it's 23 hours 55 minutes of preparation and a few minutes actually firing the shutter!

[bacchus180]

use custom white balance and set it in your camera... that will solve the problems of losing the whites...

[simpo two]

beano500 said:

Bear in mind that by the time your lighting is sorted the ice cream will have melted

Wake up at the back

[V6GTO]

I think if you meter from the whitest white that you want detail from, come down 4 stops and bracket you should be damned close.

Martin.

[ehasler]

Would you not want to go up a couple of stops (over expose) if you're metering off the white?

[V6GTO]

ehasler said:

Would you not want to go up a couple of stops (over expose) if you're metering off the white?

You know what I meant

[dcw@pr]

On the white balance issue, don't worry about it too much, as it will be very easy for you to tweak in Photoshop, using the White Point picker in the Levels box.

[rico]

Chim_Girl, a very good family friend does this as a career, well, she prepares the food ready for photographing. If you're interested i could give you her website? Email me via profile

[simpo two]

dcw@pr said:

On the white balance issue, don't worry about it too much, as it will be very easy for you to tweak in Photoshop, using the White Point picker in the Levels box.

A man after my own heart. I think people can obsess too much about WB. IMO exposure is far more important.

rico said:

she prepares the food ready for photographing.

I volunteer to eat it afterwards

[FunkyNige]

beano500 said:

It's a bit like taking pictures in snow.

On a bit of a hijack, what is the easiest way of taking photos in the snow? I have an orange filter that came with the camera, which I was told was to use with snow. Unfortuntaly I forgot if he was on about black and white photos or colour (sorry Simon), so what method gets the best results on snow, using a film camera.

[simpo two]

FunkyNige said:

what is the easiest way of taking photos in the snow? I have an orange filter that came with the camera, which I was told was to use with snow. Unfortuntaly I forgot if he was on about black and white photos or colour (sorry Simon), so what method gets the best results on snow, using a film camera.

Orange filters are for b/w; they increase sky contrast. In colour they will - uh - make everything orange!
With very bright white surfaces the camera thinks 'wow, that's a bit bright' and stops down - reduces exposure - to make it a nice light grey colour instead, which is what its brain says is correct. The more snow there is in the shot, the more this will happen. So, to get your whites bright again, you need to compensate.
If you have a girlie camera there will be a 'snow mode'.
If you have a proper camera you can increase exposure (+EV) in steps as required. Obviously if you dial in too much +EV the white will burn out, so be careful. If it's digital, you have the great advantage of being able to review as you go. In summary, be aware of what might happen and be ready to deal with it if it happens.