Food Pics around Singapore


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ishoot

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Jul 29, 2006
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Hi. I love food and I love photography. I combine both in my blogsite ieatishootipost.blogspot.com. As I have only seriously starting to shoot pics of food about 2 months ago when I bought my Canon 350D I would appreciate some pointers from the experts here. Constructive criticism with solutions on how to fix the problem would be great. Also at the same time to introduce you to some great eats which I gathered from my food forum kakis. I plan to blog most of the major Food Centres in Singapore introducing 5 of the top stalls in each centre. The latest is Lavender Food Square which you can view by clicking this

My equipment is a 350D with 28-105mm lens and 380EX. I am planning to buy a 60mm 2.8 macro.

Specific questions.

1. What do you all set your saturation, contrast, tone to when you shoot?
2. Will the new 60mm lens give me sharper images or more saturated colours?
3. Most of the shots were touched up using photoshop. So comments on tone, colour balance would be very helpful. I tend to favour a more yellowish tinge to the pics rather then blue as I think it makes the food more delicious. What do you all think?
4. Since different monitors may favour a cooler or warmer tint what do you all usually do to compensate?
 

1. What do you all set your saturation, contrast, tone to when you shoot?

u have a DSLR. shoot RAW. leave the rest to later to RAW workflow.

2. Will the new 60mm lens give me sharper images or more saturated colours?
macro lens. definitely sharp. colours... if you are talking about kit lens. probably yes.
 

Frankly speaking...

Your food shots are good enough that make me want to go all the way to katong to try.

I agree that shooting in RAW would be a good start for you

However, you might find it a little troublesome shooting with a macro lens unless you want to increase the image size of your food shots.

I think that what you have now is good enough and that is what I would use for food shots.

Ultimately, it really depends on what kind of images you want to achieve.
 

Read ur website, its very very good. :D love ur photos too :D
 

1. What do you all set your saturation, contrast, tone to when you shoot?

u have a DSLR. shoot RAW. leave the rest to later to RAW workflow.

2. Will the new 60mm lens give me sharper images or more saturated colours?
macro lens. definitely sharp. colours... if you are talking about kit lens. probably yes.

I find RAW troublesome to work with since you have to use special software. Can you explain or maybe point me to somewhere I can learn about RAW workflow?
 

Frankly speaking...

Your food shots are good enough that make me want to go all the way to katong to try.

I agree that shooting in RAW would be a good start for you

However, you might find it a little troublesome shooting with a macro lens unless you want to increase the image size of your food shots.

I think that what you have now is good enough and that is what I would use for food shots.

Ultimately, it really depends on what kind of images you want to achieve.

The problem with my lens now is that the closest I can get to the food is 0.5m. Any closer and the image becomes blurred. Troublesome as I always have to shoot a bit further away. I thought by using the 60mm macro, I should be able to shoot up close. Especially shots where I want to show people the contents of a siew mai.
 

Wah... Food review king man... :thumbsup: I also love to eat and shoot... :bsmilie:
 

Welocome your comments especially if you disagree
 

The problem with my lens now is that the closest I can get to the food is 0.5m. Any closer and the image becomes blurred. Troublesome as I always have to shoot a bit further away. I thought by using the 60mm macro, I should be able to shoot up close. Especially shots where I want to show people the contents of a siew mai.

The problem is that if you were to buy the 60mm Macro, your FOV is going to be about 96mm which is close to 100mm. If you want to have that kind of images, then yeah I would agree that a 60mm would be good for you.

As for workflow of DPP, I guess you would have to play around with it. I guess you can read the manual for DPP that came with your 350D in order to find out more.
 

3. Most of the shots were touched up using photoshop. So comments on tone, colour balance would be very helpful. I tend to favour a more yellowish tinge to the pics rather then blue as I think it makes the food more delicious. What do you all think?

4. Since different monitors may favour a cooler or warmer tint what do you all usually do to compensate?

I personally think a warmer light on food shots tend to be a little distracting. I prefer natural light and will usually bring a small reflector with me whenever I know I'll be taking some food shots. That's of course possible only during the day so for night time eats, I usually shoot in RAW and mess with the WB in the post processing phase and tend to give the images a cooler look. Personal preference, but really, shoot in RAW so you have more leeway in the overall look of your pics.

To get the colors right, it's important to calibrate your monitor with calibration software.
 

I find RAW troublesome to work with since you have to use special software. Can you explain or maybe point me to somewhere I can learn about RAW workflow?

well. you get one free software with ur camera - DPP which is pretty good raw converter.

adobe bridge or ACR, comes with photoshop CS2.

alternatively, ive recently been using adobe lightroom.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/

its free. (beta version). powerful. and quite easy to get the hang of.



theres a few instructional videos on the site.

theres realy not much to raw workflow once u get the hang of the software. mostly its just the basics of adjusting white balance, exposure, bumping up the saturation or curves or not, to suit your taste etc.
and depending on preference, sharpening and noise removal

.i mean, let me put it this way. wouldnt u rather have control over all these quite important elements, or are u happy to let the camera decide everything for u.
 

I am actually doing all the stuff ie color balance, levels, saturation on jpeg. I guess I will need to try RAW and see how it goes since most of the experts are recommending this.

Should I shoot with RAW and M? Maybe can play around with that.
 

I am actually doing all the stuff ie color balance, levels, saturation on jpeg. I guess I will need to try RAW and see how it goes since most of the experts are recommending this.

Should I shoot with RAW and M? Maybe can play around with that.

M as in manual mode? or M as in Medium jpeg.

normally i tend to always shoot manual. sometimes Av. but not often.
 

M as in manual mode? or M as in Medium jpeg.

normally i tend to always shoot manual. sometimes Av. but not often.

There is a setting for RAW and Medium jpeg.

I have not developed the ability to shoot manual yet. Always use Av to control DOF only.
 

There is a setting for RAW and Medium jpeg.

I have not developed the ability to shoot manual yet. Always use Av to control DOF only.

theres no harm in shooting raw and jpeg... but... it just means more hardisk space used up.... and ull go through CF cards pretty quick. but as i said, once u get familiar with making adjustments with raw (seeing as u already make those adjustments in jpeg), i dont think ull see the need to keep shooting in both formats.
 

I tried the RAW and JPEG settings last week and found that for the purpose of publishing on the web, JPEG was alright and I can manage to get the right colours using photoshop on JPEG as good as the RAW images. I guess it will be a difference if you need to print the pictures.
 

I just posted my pics of the 8 course degustation menu from Iggy's. Had difficulties with the lighting as I did not bring my flash. Using my 350D with 28-105mm lens. There was one spotlight which was shining from behind the dishes casting long shadows. Difficult also to move out of your chair because everyone was so well behaved. Did the best I could Invite your feedback and suggestions

http://ieatishootipost.blogspot.com/2006/10/iggys-you-want-best-i-give-you-best.html
 

maybe you want to consider moving your link to your site to Still Life or Reportage or A Photo A Day? it's difficult to give detailed feedback on entire albums, i believe that's why there're not much responses here?
 

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