Learn how to see exposures I see a lot of blogs with pictures of their food that are too dark. Learning how to get the perfect exposure takes time. After a while you will start to see the difference in images when they are too dark or too light, you'll just know by looking at them. Look at food magazines - my FAVORITE is Donna Hay. You can see a few teaser pages of each magazine online for … [Read more...]
What is the best time of day to photograph food?
I often get asked what is the best time of day to shoot food when using natural light. This really depends on where you are shooting and how much natural light you are actually getting at certain times of the day. I always use a tripod so for me I am not limited by the quantity of light that is coming through the window. If you are not using a tripod (and you should be by now!) you are totally at … [Read more...]
Camera modes – what do they mean? AV, TV, P, etc.
There's many food bloggers out there who always shoot in one of the "automatic" camera modes. I get told this in class all the time. I'm going to break down each of the modes here so you can understand what the camera is doing in each one. Different cameras might not have all these modes you see here and other cameras might have a few extra ones as well. If you see other icons for other modes … [Read more...]
When to change your ISO setting for exposure
By now hopefully you've seen the post talking about ISO. Its important to always shoot with the ISO at the lowest setting (usually 100) in order to keep the data in your image as clean as can been (with as little digital noise as possible). When you shoot using a tripod you will almost always be able to set your ISO at the lowest setting. However when you are hand holding (which I know you … [Read more...]
The Relationship Between F-Stop and Shutter Speed
Now that we have gone over the three crucial camera settings used to achieve the proper exposure, f-stop, shutter speed, and ISO, we need to talk about how they work together. To start I'm only going to address f-stops and shutter speeds first. I will address the third component ISO in another post The f-stop, shutter speed and ISO are completely tied together for exposure. When I'm … [Read more...]
What is ISO and How It Works
ISO is the third setting that you need to know about in order to get a correct exposure. I've already addressed the other two - f-stop and shutter speed in these posts. As I've mentioned before the perfect exposure is a combination of these three settings, f-stop, shutter speed and ISO. ISO stands for International Standards Organization. In a nutshell the setting choices for ISO (50, 100, 200, … [Read more...]
What is Shutter Speed and How Does It Work?
Getting the perfect exposure is challenging for most students who take my classes. Often they are setting their camera to one of the "auto" exposure camera settings (AV, TV, Program, Fully Auto, etc) and just crossing their fingers that this setting works in getting them a good exposure. I want you to be able to control your camera and understand how it works to properly expose your images. The … [Read more...]