I’m back with more commentary about photography! This is lengthy, but it’s worth reading (twss?) Take a warm beverage, then settle in for some studying.
Food photography is by far my favourite aspect of food blogging. But it can also be the most frustrating when you first start out. Recently, I’ve been inundated with inquiries about photography, and one of my top bits of advice is to ALWAYS LEARN MANUAL MODE ON YOUR DSLR camera. It will genuinely alter your course. We’re here to talk about that today.
Prior to getting a how to use dslr camera, I had a very little background in photography. Although I continue to learn new things every day. I like to believe that I have fully grasped the fundamentals of manual mode, particularly when it comes to taking pictures of food. Although the way I shoot might not be ideal for everyone (I’ll go into that more later). There are several simple modifications you can make to make manual mode work for you.
This article mostly focuses on the exposure triangle and how to control light to create stunning photographs with the desired aesthetic.
Why Shoot in Manual Mode
Simply said, shooting in manual mode provides you more control over your surroundings and the amount of light entering your camera. If your subject is moving really quickly, you can change the shutter speed to stop their motion in its tracks.
Or perhaps you want a little blur in the image to illustrate how the topic is moving (for example, the flow of a waterfall). There are a variety of reasons why you would wish to adjust the lighting in a picture, and manual mode makes that possible.
Let’s compare the settings on my DSLR camera in manual mode and auto mode. My camera’s auto settings were used to take the image on the left, while the manual settings were used to take the image on the right.
Exposure Triangle
In order to shoot excellent pictures in manual mode. You will need to tweak three key settings: First, shutter speed Aperture, ISO, and three. Even in situations with strong lighting. Learning to adjust these parameters in relation to one another will produce stunning and distinctive images.
Also Read: Best Camera Sling Bags
My Setting
All of that being said, these are the setting that I most commonly use to shoot food photography: 1/80, f2.8, ISO 200
Shutter Speed: I normally use a shutter speed of 1/80. I’ll go as low as 1/50 if I need more light on a dark day (some have called me insane for doing this without a tripod, but it works for me). When shooting a full photo with motion, I’ll increase the shutter speed to around 1/200.
Aperture: Depending on the cuisine, the lighting, and my mood, my aperture changes. Because I prefer images with relatively shallow depths of field. Practically all of my photos are taken in the 4.0 to 5.0 range. Only when I want something in the background (like a product label) to be more in focus do I go above that; in that case. I increase my aperture to around a 7.
ISO: I try to keep my iso as low as 100. But that doesn’t happen very often. On a typical day, I would say that my iso stays in the 200–300 area. But if it’s a particularly cloudy day, I might bump it up to 800, but I won’t go any higher than that because the grain in the image will be too much for me to tolerate.
Want to Learn More
This information is essentially only a jumping-off point. There were two blogs that were quite useful to me as I learned food photography:
Baker, minimalist. I used to purchase Dana’s ebook, which I found to be quite helpful in honing my food photography skills. Since then, she has introduced her Food Photography School in place of the ebook. I also purchased that, and I frequently refer to it. The food photography course is a great complement to everything I’ve covered thus far.
I absolutely adore her sense of style, and without it, I never would have become the photographer I am today. Her Food Photography School comes HIGHLY recommended.
