Beautiful meals pictures in pure window gentle shouldn’t be as troublesome as you would possibly assume. It’s a fast and cost-effective strategy to seize beautiful meals pictures. It simply takes somewhat planning. It’s nice for within the studio and even at a restaurant.
Stage the set
I positioned three vinyl timber floorboards on the concrete ground within the studio, immediately in entrance of the window. I had a double thickness of sheers hung over the window with late morning solar (east going through window). The daylight was coming in, however circuitously as it will have been early within the morning.
I then staged our strawberry cupcake scene. I might have set this up on a desk, however we needed to shoot immediately down, so the ground is simpler for capturing.
Props, drops and equipment
I actually needed the cupcakes to shine as our Heroes, so we saved the whole lot pretty minimal. White plates — a number of with some gold trim — a white tiered cake stand and plenty of contemporary strawberries. I additionally had a silver reflector leaning in opposition to a tripod on the left to bounce again in additional gentle.
Digicam settings
As I used to be capturing as a flat lay (straight down), I used to be handholding my digicam. I might have used a tripod however most popular the flexibility of capturing handheld. This did imply my ISO obtained fairly excessive (ISO 4000).
I used to be capturing on Aperture Precedence with Auto ISO and a minimal shutter pace of 1/125s. I discovered that on Auto White Stability, my pictures had fairly a little bit of yellow creeping in, so I used the eyedropper in Lightroom to regulate the white stability throughout post-processing. I might have additionally used a grey card.
I discovered that I must overexpose my pictures in line with the histogram to get the whole lot nicely lit. I used Publicity Compensation at +2 stops. I nonetheless boosted the highlights and white in put up a contact as nicely. I shot at f/2.8 on my Tamron 28-75mm lens.
Crimson is difficult
Crimson is a tough coloration to get proper in pictures, particularly with meals. The proper white stability could be very useful. I additionally discover that boosting the vibrancy, and never the saturation, works too. Boosting the saturation makes the reds all too typically look pretend.
One closing tip
Whereas I typically say to spray contemporary fruit with water to make it look contemporary, do NOT spray any water round or subsequent to the cream, because it typically has disastrous outcomes. In order that the ‘cream’ saved its form, we whipped cream, sugar and cream cheese collectively. It nonetheless tastes beautiful, however it appears to be like even higher.
