Written by: Allie Beauchesne

We’ve started to share some of our insight into food photography here on the blog, from the steps it takes to make a great food photo, to the differences between an amateur and a pro in approaching a shoot. As professionals, we value the time, process, and knowledge one needs to consistently execute high quality food images. But we didn’t get here overnight. So today, let’s get back to the basics. The DSLR basics.

M is for Mandatory

While you can certainly still capture great photos with your smartphone, there’s a big difference between snapping your beautiful brunch dish while out with friends, and creating a professional level food photo. Once you make the shift to a quality, DSLR or mirrorless camera, there are a few basic settings upon which you should have a steady grasp. Building this foundation will help you move from novice to knowledgeable, and allow you to focus on things like composition (and, you know, the food!) on your next shoot. 

So where to start? Shooting in manual mode is the best place to begin honing our skills as it provides the utmost control over all the variables you face when shooting. When one gets a DSLR camera, the common first inclination is to shoot in automatic mode and see what your new camera can do. While it’ll satisfy your needs for a little while, soon enough you’ll want to know how to control everything you can in your photo – by shooting in manual mode.

The Exposure Triangle

Basically, there are three settings to consider when shooting in manual mode, and they all have an impact on your exposure, or how much light is in your photo. These settings all impact one another, so when you change one, you have to be familiar with how it will impact the other two. These three settings are:

• Aperture (sometimes referred to as “f stop”)

• Shutter Speed

• ISO

Aperture controls your depth of field, and refers to how “open” your lens is while shooting, and thus, how much light is reaching the sensor of your camera. This setting can be confusing, as it is technically “high” or “wide open” when your f stop number is as low as possible. The lower your f number, the more light in your photo. As importantly, though, this setting also controls the depth of field in your photo, and a lower number here will result in specific parts of your image being in focus. We elaborate on this below.

Shutter speed is the length of time light reaches the sensor of your camera. It is a necessary consideration when shooting by hand versus a tripod, when trying to capture movement, and when trying to let sufficient light into your photo. 

ISO can be considered the sensitivity of your camera’s sensor, though it is more complicated than that. The higher the ISO, the more light in the image – however, the higher the number, the more noise that can be introduced to the photo. As such, most food photographers recommend you keep this number as close to 100 as possible when shooting.

When Aperture is Important

In addition to letting light into the camera, a high aperture (or smaller f stop number) can also create a shallow depth of field, which can create a blurry background, or the sought after “bokeh” effect many photographers are looking for. The image to the right [1] was taken in a brewery on a cloudy day. Let’s break it down a little.

We went for a really shallow depth of field here to make the background, ultimately a parking lot and some trees, look really interesting while not distracting from the beer. The result is the beer glass and brewery logo are sharply in focus, while the rest of the image sort of fades into a dream-like setting.

The ISO number is a little higher than we’d have liked, but it was necessary to get the shot properly exposed. That is because of the shutter speed; we were shooting this image hand held with our camera, and 1/125 is the lowest number we know we can get away with before we introduce any shake to the camera and potentially compromise the focus of the shot. If we were shooting this brewery for a client/in a professional manner, we could have lowered the ISO to 100, and decreased the shutter speed to something much slower (like 1/20) to get similar results. However, to execute this slower shutter speed, the camera would need to be on a tripod or stabilized somehow. Overall, our intention would be to change the ISO and shutter speed settings while keeping the f stop number around f/1.8, in order to get the blurry background of our dreams here.

The image [2] is similar in that we wanted a nice bokeh in the background, especially to turn the Christmas lights we had strung up into nice golden, glowing orbs. However, we wanted the slice of cake as the main focal point, while still having the rest of the cake somewhat in focus. To achieve this, we went with a slightly higher f stop number of 2.5. 

Also, because this was shot using a tripod, we could lower our shutter speed way down to 1/30, letting in more light without having to raise the ISO number.

Finally, for a totally different kind of example, we have the overhead image [3]. Because we wanted the flowers in the vase, pointing up towards the camera, and those laying on the table both in focus, we needed to use a very wide depth of field, or a high f stop number. While f/20 might’ve been a little aggressive, the result is the whole image is in focus from front to back and there is absolutely no blur.

To achieve this, however, we really needed to lower our shutter speed – all the way down to 3.2 seconds, to let in enough light to achieve the bright, springtime like feel we have here.

When Shutter Speed is Important

There are times when shutter speed will be your number one concern for an image, too. As mentioned above, if you don’t have a tripod handy and are planning on holding your camera while shooting, there’s a certain number most people cannot go below without shaking their camera. We’ve found 1/125 to be pretty foolproof. Some people feel more comfortable at higher numbers like 1/200, and some with steady hands can go lower like 1/80. It’s all about personal preference and what you’ve had success with.

Beyond that consideration, however, is the intentional capture of movement. When shooting some food and drinks, it’s especially captivating to include some action in the shot – whether it be pouring a drink, glazing a cake, or adding a dusting of powdered sugar, your shutter speed needs to be especially high to capture this kind of action. 

Our first example of using shutter speed to capture movement is a bit of an extreme one [4]. Here we wanted to get the tiny, fine particles of powdered sugar as they rained down onto the cake, with almost no motion blur. To execute this, we needed a super high shutter speed of 1/2000 second. 

We went as low as our camera lens would allow for depth of field, to 2.8, which let in some additional light. However, to compensate for that really high shutter speed, we needed to increase our ISO all the way up to 3200. The camera we have performs better than many others when it comes to limiting noise, but it is still noticeable here, especially when the size is increased. As such, this image wouldn’t really suit our professional standards for anything other than social media use, and definitely wouldn’t look great in print.

Similarly, we wanted to capture a splash with image [5], which also requires quite quick shutter speed. At 1/1000 of a second, we were able to get the ice just as it hit the glass and the resulting splash, with just enough motion blur to show the direction the liquid is going. We kept the depth of field relatively narrow with an f stop of 2.2, but again had to raise our ISO up rather high to achieve this with natural light. The result is there is a fair amount of graininess in the image, most visible in the black background. However, for a fun brunch shot for Instagram, we were quite pleased with our results here.

Conversely, there are times when capturing movement does not require a shutter speed in the thousandths of a second. This image uses a shutter speed of 1/500 of a second, which results in a nice clear pour shot of the wine. As the shutter speed is slower, our ISO does not have to be nearly as high, and we can keep our f stop number where we want to achieve our bokeh background. Win/Win/Win!

Finally, image [6] shows that, when a camera is stabilized, a nice slow shutter speed of an eighth of a second can let in plenty of beautiful natural light to an image. We kept our depth of field a bit wider to ensure any varying heights on the produce remained in focus, and we were able to keep our ISO at 100, resulting in no noise or graininess in the image. The final product is sharp and crisp, even when blown up to a large size – our exact intention for this image!

Things to Keep in Mind

To sum it up, there is clearly a lot to think about when you first begin shooting in manual mode with your DSLR camera. But with a little studying and a lot of practice, you can get a really solid handle on the exposure triangle and know where your settings need to be before you even begin shooting. The best part about practicing? Besides getting better and honing your craft, which is obviously the driving force here – in this line of work, there’s always a drink or a snack to look forward to!