Taking Pictures of Food – What I Have Learned (Part 2)

This is the second part of my series on what I have learned all these years taking pictures. As mentioned, in my first post, these are the planned topics:

• The Camera
• Camera Settings – this post!
• Composition Taking the Picture
• Post-processing

OK, now you have your camera, battery charged, SD card in and so on. Ready to take pictures? Well, no… See, a lot of people jump right away and start taking pictures all in auto settings. For the most part, that is fine. Most modern point-and-shoot (P&S) will done fine with the default settings, provided you are not too demanding. However, more can be done if you are willing to “tweak” it a little bit. And that is the topic of this post…

Update!!!! I have included some pictures for example purposes.

As a reminder, my posts focus mostly in SLR but your P&S might have similar settings.

When I got my first camera, one thing that a lot of “pros” emphasized was the “photography trinity”: ISO setting, shutter speed and aperture. At first, I was just your happy average consumer taking everything in auto mode. But, one day, I decided to play with those settings and ended up in really crappy results. I thought, why the hell they would make emphasis on these settings if the results are crap? As you can guess, that is because I was setting them incorrectly. Through some trial and error, I started to fine tune thing a little bit but, still, I knew I had a lot to go through. But, here comes on small detail: Why would any average user want to spend so much time in settings when you can spend your time taking pictures? Well, my answer further down in this post…

But, back to the topic of the three settings, it is the combination of the three that will determine what you will get at the end. So, let’s break it down:

ISO Setting: I will admit that, out of the three settings, this is the one I know the least about (and, chances are, I am completely wrong!). That is because I leave it as it default setting (in my case, 200)! Anyway, ISO settings refers to the sensitivity of the camera sensors. How does it apply to the real world? Not 100% sure, but one thing I have learned from taking pictures: the higher the ISO, the picture tends to be grainier, though works better with fast moving objects. Since I seldom take such pictures under those circumstances, I will leave it up to you to play with it!

Shutter speed: When you take a picture, how long will the shutter will remain open for the sensor to “capture” the image. Since photography is all about light available, what setting to use will depend on the amount of light available. For example, if it is really bright (noon on a summer day), something over 1/500 second could work fine, while on a cloudy day you might be more tempted to use something on the lines of 1/100 seconds. And, of course, if it is really dark, even a full second.

Aperture: While the shutter speed determines how long the shutter will remain open, aperture determines how wide it will open. It is usually represented by f/# where # is a number. The lower the number, the wider it will be. Similar to the shutter speed, different lightning conditions will determine what aperture should be used.

In addition to these settings, there are other settings that exists but, for the most part, people overlook it because, well, it does not seem to do much. The most “important” one would be white balance, where you “optimize” how the camera will take the picture depending on the lightning outside – For example, incandescent or fluorescent light behaves differently, likewise, a sunny day and a cloudy day also behaves somewhat differently. Play with these settings and you (and the camera) might look things from a different perspective.

While all these “settings” are important, I will admit that I am a slacker with these. The reasons are:

1) After all these years, I still don’t know what is the “best” setting to use for most conditions. (Answer: there is no such “best” setting).
2) Even if I did, I would rather spend time trying to take the picture than playing with the settings.
3) I seldom take pictures in a controlled environment (say, a studio). When things change from shot to shot, it means I have to tweak it for each shot, which brings back to the two points above.

That is why, rather than setting up my camera in manual mode (where you set both shutter speed and aperture manually), aperture priority (where you set the aperture manually and leave the shutter speed to the camera) or shutter priority (again, where you set the shutter speed manually), I use programmed mode by default. This mode is a mix between auto and manual – the only two settings I delegate to the camera is the aperture and shutter speed. Everything else is up to me. Also, if I need to make an adjustment, I don’t have to fiddle through the menus to access them; instead, just a quick flip on the knobs can increase/decrease the aperture/shutter speed while maintaining that semi-automatic mode (consult your camera manual for the steps).

Camera set to Programmed mode in my Nikon D40

I will say that over 80% of the time programmed mode works for me but, there are times that I do want full control (i.e., use manual mode). Since I am far from knowing all the intricacies, what I do is take a snapshot with programmed mode, look at the settings the camera used and I then use them as base for me to then set up my own aperture/shutter speed. I know that this might sound odd but there are reasons why I do this…

Have you noticed pictures of fountains or streams or even waterfalls where the stream of water looks like a solid line rather than water splashing on rocks? Likewise, have you seen pictures where the background is either blurry or it captures a lot of detail? Well, it is in those cases where you might want to start adjusting either aperture and shutter speed as, depending on these, it is how you can generate those effects:

1) If you want to create that “stream” effect (fountains, water falls, et al), decrease the shutter speed. 1/15 should do a lot… (Of course, some help from mother nature might be required).
2) If you want to capture more of the background, decrease the aperture. Assuming there is decent amount of lightning, start with something like f/9 and then go to f/11 and so on.
3) If you want a really shallow dept, i.e., most of the background to be blurry, use a really high aperture, for example, f/4.

(Update, since it was originally too “dry”, below is an example of what occurs when you change the aperture. The pictures below were taken in HK BBQ Master, my post here).

ISO 400; Shutter speed: 1/30; Aperture: f/1.8. While quite bright, notice the focus is mostly on the bok choy at the bottom and the rest is quite blurry.

ISO 1600; Shutter speed: 1/30; Aperture: f/4.5. By reducing the aperture, now there is more detail of the background…

ISO 400; Shutter speed: 1/30; Aperture: f/6.3. However, if we set it too low, it gets too “dark”.

Sidenote: if you set your shutter speed to something low, your shakiness might cause some blurriness in the picture. In those cases, it is highly recommended you get a tripod and, if necessary, use a delayed shot).

Now, since the combination of ISO, shutter speed and aperture is similar to that of a three legged stool, it means that changing one setting requires a change from another to compensate. So, if you are decreasing the aperture, you might want to increase the shutter speed to make sure enough light is capture by the camera sensor. Of course, if the intent is to make it “darker” or “brighter”… However, since I assume you are using a digital camera, there is a better approach: take one picture, look at the results. Don’t like it? Change the settings and take another one! (Did I mention that is one of the main reasons it is unlikely I will go to film???).

There is one situation where I leave it at programmed mode no matter what: When I use a flash (special consideration as I use an external flash). Since I don’t point the flash directly at the subject I am taking pictures of, that means the light could bounce in odd ways. Given that 99.999% of the time I take pictures in settings that I can’t control (again, a studio with artificial lightning), I would rather not guess and leave it in programmed.

That begs the question now: sure, all this is good but… Where should you start if you want to manually adjust your camera? As mentioned above, I am sure most people would rather be taking pictures than tweaking with settings and my answer to that would be learning from others. While conditions might not be exactly the same, I am sure some of you will want to know how the images were taken or what settings were used. I mean, you weren’t there to snoop the photographer when he/she was taking the picture, right? Well, not 100% true. There is something called EXIF which stands for Exchangeable Image File Format. Other than some notable exceptions (like PNG and JPEG 2000), most images include details about the camera used to take the picture. These details include time stamp, camera make and model, aperture, shutter speed, mode, etc. etc. There are EXIF plugins for browsers or, if you are too lazy to install them, there are only viewers on-line. While you might not truely reproduce the same image (as, even using the same setting, the camera might capture things differently, not to mention it would be quite difficult to duplicate the exact same conditions), at least that give you a starting point to play with.

So, there you go! Again, these settings are the core when taking pictures and allow you to fine-tune what you are doing. While it is something good to know, it is not absolutely necessary to know. It is in those instances where you really feel the need to take full control that I believe will allow you to shine. For the rest of the time, I believe that most modern cameras will do the job over 80% of the time. As I have repeated myself a couple of times, instead of going overboard, just enjoy taking that picture instead. Who knows, that one moment might not be there one second after… And, in the case of food, hey, the food might get cold!

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