Showing posts with label how to ?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how to ?. Show all posts
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Food Photography | How to shoot Food pictures with a bright,white background #tutorials #foodphotography
I love White !! Be it an attire or pictures. My favorite choice any day.
I am a part of various food photography forums, where there is a lot of mutual learning involved. Over the last 5 years, I have progressed in my food photography clicking really unpleasing pictures to nearly appealing pictures now. I am learning every single day with every new post, new images posted trying to understand how the image has been portrayed and why ?
One question I am often posed is How do you take food pictures on a white background , absolutely seamless. Can you share your set up please ? Subject shot on white background reflects absolute elegance,drama, Christmas-sy ,divine and what not.
Here is how I achieve it. There are two ways to do it. First method is Back lighting and the Second in Side lighting. For both the methods, we need to understand light and use reflectors and / or diffusers depending on the light. Side lighting is my absolute favorite method and this lighting technique hardly fails anyone. In this post I am going to share how to achieve this perfectly back lit image.
What do we need for this ?
- Subject | food you are going to Photograph
- A window covered with a white linen or a translucent sheet
- White Background - It can be a wooden board painted white or a white fabric/ linen or a white foam board
- Reflectors / Bounce – Two foam boards or cardboard's wrapped with aluminium foils
- A camera placed on Tripod with Manual Settings
Here's how my set up looks like to begin with .
Today's weather was cloudy .A white bed sheet is draped on my window , as the light through the window is harsh. We are looking at a soft, toned light. Eggs tray loaded with eggs are sitting on the White wooden board , overlooking the window.
Basically when we call Back Lighting , our light source ( the window ) is behind the the subject. In this case the eggs.
For the egg tray shots , I have picked an aperture setting of f/4 on my canon mm 1.8 lens. An aperture setting of f / 4 lets me sharp focus on the eggs in the first 2 rows , slowly getting shallow at the end of the tray.
EXIF info for Images below:
Lens : Canon 50 mm 1.8 lens
ISO: 500 for all photos
Aperture: f/4 for all photos
Shutter Speed :Varying
White Balance : Daylight ( you may leave it to Auto, if you are not sure how to adjust it)
Manual Mode
For instructions on how operate manual mode , kindly read the camera manual .
Keeping the Aperture f/4 fixed , I fixed my camera on my tripod . Looking through the view finder, when the exposure value was right in the middle, I snapped the button .It was at 1/125 s, as in the first image. The image looked dark . Reducing your shutter speed further to 1/60 s - Slightly better than the previous one , but still dark.
Lets reduce the shutter speed further down to 1/ 40 s and we see the image getting brighter than before. Still not convinced .
I reduced the shutter speed further down to 1/25 s , looks much better with enough light in , isn't it ?
Fixing my shutter speed at 1/25 s , I added a white board on to my left side to get rid of the dark area on the eggs . Much better and we are nearly there ain't we ?
With a little shadow on the right side too , I have added one more white board on the right .
And here is how it looks like finally with shutter speed 1/25 s.
Keeping the foam boards in tact , Just to avoid any further doubt, if we could have gone any further, I lowered the shutter speed further - 1/20 s, 1/15 s and 1/ 13 s . Find the images below.
I found the image with 1 /13 s slightly over exposed.Hence eliminated it from my choice.While comparing the images with 1/ 25 s , 1/20 s & 1/15 s - I loved the little extra brightness I am obtaining at 1/15 s.
At f /4.0 aperture and shutter speed 1/ 15 s , I am satisfied with the brightness and the crispness of the image. Having it more brighter or darker , is one's personal choice.
Saturday, November 7, 2015
How to Make Oven Dried Tomatoes at home ?
It was one of those visit to the Indian Stores when I found Vine Tomatoes dearth cheap.. Oh yes !! I really mean it .. It was about 69 pence a kilo as against the 2£ from our regular super stores.. I enjoy hand picking them when still on Vine , rather than the large red tomatoes on its own. Have I mentioned before ? Vine Tomatoes are one of my favourite subject for still life.. I can click any number of times we buy them, still find it facinating. And Garlic too...
I had bought a couple of kilo's from the market and my plans to utilise them were ready. Sun dried tomatoes have been on my mind for a while but with the weather like UK, I actually gave up. It was that week, when the chef friend visited us and was telling me about making some Oven dried tomatoes that is made in routine in their hotel. When we were having a detailed chat about food and recipes , he scribbled a quick combination of ingredients to make them So Oven dried it is !!!
What happens when you Oven Dry the Tomatoes or Sun dry the Tomatoes ? The ripe tomatoes lose majority of their water content after spending time drying under the sun or in the oven. The Vine tomatoes lose aproximately 93 % of the water content while the cherry tomatoes can lose unto 88%. ( Information source : Wikipedia)
These dried tomatoes taste heaven in pita sandwiches, panini's and even while smorging too.
OVEN DRIED TOMATOES - Make them at home
INGREDIENTS:
2 Kilo's of Vine Tomatoes, firm
1/2 cup olive oil
2- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Freshly ground pepper
Salt
Enough Olive oil
Italian Seasoning to add into the oil while storing ( optional)
Yields approximately 380 g Oven dried tomatoes.
DIRECTIONS:
I tried them in two ways.
First Method:
Preheat the oven to the lowest setting in your oven. My oven has the lowest temp at 110 C. Firstly arranged a parchment paper on the baking tin. I just chopped the Vine tomatoes into wedges, arranged them in line .Sprinkle some salt and pepper . Place a few pieces of finely chopped garlic pieces and then generously drizzle some olive oil on them. Bake for 3-3.5 hours , until the desired level of dryness is achieved. Cool them completely and transfer in to clean jar. Fill the jar with olive oil until the dried tomatoes are completely submerged.
Keep the jar refrigerated. Tomatoes will last approximately for 2 - 2.5 weeks.
Second Method:
Chop the Vine tomatoes into wedges and de seed them. Sprinkle some salt and set it aside for about 30 minutes. Since a good amount of juice from the tomato comes off, the time taken to dry will be quicker than the previous method. Now arrange the tomato wedges on the parchment paper in a baking tin. Sprinkle some pepper and drizzle generously good amount of olive oil. Arrange some pieces of garlic on the tomato wedges. Bake them for about 2- 3 hours until the desired level of dryness is achieved. Cool them completely and transfer in to clean jar. Fill the jar with olive oil until the dried tomatoes are completely submerged.
Keep the jar refrigerated. Tomatoes will last approximately for 2 - 2.5 weeks.
NOTES:
Seasoning added to your tomatoes and oil is entirely personal choice. Some people enjoy Basil. Italian seasonings and oregano. Some people do not enjoy garlic in their food, in that case kindly omit them .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)