Ok..... first paying gig!!

[RBennett]

Ok, so I have been offered my first paying gig. There is a guy starting up a catering business in town here and apparently he wants to be in the local free magazine to advertise etc. He wants me to come out to their place and take pictures of some of his dishes whenever he comes up with a new one. I'm not too worried about hardware because my camera can handle it I think. The operator on the other hand....... Here's my question. The biggest worry I have is lighting. If I use the lighting in the room everything will probably come out looking yellow, but if I use the built-in flash it may not be even or it may over expose areas. So what does everyone recommend?? I have a Pentax K100D with the 18-55 kit lens and the prime 50mm f/1.4 lens. Help!!!

 

[Tuffcookie]

The more inexpensive way would be to use natural lighting. Is there any way you can use a room that has alot of light coming in thru the windows?

TC

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Do you have an external flash? A bounce flash would probably work well in that situation. Maybe you should do a crash course in photographing food - I'm sure there's info around on the net. Or just go grab a coffee and hang out in Barnes and Noble's magazine section looking at food photos. There are some people here who've posted some studio-type shots who might have some ideas about set up, backgrounds, etc. Or, what about doing some outdoor shots if the food is sold somewhere scenic, like by the mountains or ocean, etc? Good luck, maybe you're onto something!

 

[GrillMouster]

Use a custom white balance. Use a tripod and natural light. Move the food near a window, but keep the window out of frame. If you need fill light, bounce flash off of a white piece of paper or a white tablecloth. Photograph the food while it's fresh and work fast. Find the aperture that keeps the entire plate of food in focus, but nothing else. Eliminate clutter and distractions from the frame.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Doing a quick search, there's quite a bit of information on food photography.

Here's one to start: http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/food-photography-an-introduction/

 

[handicap18]

Use a tripod wilth your sharpest lens. You don't want to use the 50mm f/1.4 at f/1.4 because you'll have NO depth of field. You can still use the 50mm f/1.4 lens though. You'll want a smaller aperture to get a deeper depth of field so use the tripod because you probably wont get very fast shutter speeds with the existing light and small f/stop. Also shoot in RAW, then you wont have to worry about the white balance while your shooting. Just correct in post processing. You'll also be able to add exposure compensation and other things without making your final jpeg very small or losing compression.

Check your angles. If you use the tripod, put it high and point it straight down, get everything in focus, then play around with other angles afterwards to see what might make things look more mouth watering. Try some macro shots on a few main dishes to get some great detail.