Strobist-Style Food Shoot

I describe a couple of ways that I take a photo of a cake using off-camera strobes and some simple light modifiers. I forgot to mention that I use RadioPopper JrX system to trigger the strobes.

The photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/forrest-tanaka/4399968313/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/forrest-tanaka/4399968309/

The Music: "fantasia" by Mary and Juan
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/56972

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• strobist
• food
• photography
• cake

[Tuddis86]

Great video. am into food photographing so this was very helpful. so i hope that there will come more of food photographing tutorials videos from you

keep up the good work

greetings from Finland

[ForrestTanaka]

@Tuddis86 I’m working on a new food photography video right now.

[hentaihime1]

question....how can I connect my camera to my desktop like you did to your laptop? do I have to install some program for this? please help for I am a newbie in photography.

Thank you very much! ^_^

[ForrestTanaka]

@hentaihime1 You do need to install some software. In this video, I used the EOS Utility that comes with Canon cameras, and it lets you control the camera settings and the shutter from the computer. Some software like Adobe Lightroom gives you shutter control for major cameras, though maybe not much else.

[MrCJ1988]

A question for ya. In terms of the very first flash unit you've reviewed, why wouldn't you just place it on the table on the side of the cake facing the background instead of attaching black board underneath the strobe? Is it because that way it would make the background looks way too bright and shiny?

Regards

[ForrestTanaka]

@MrCJ1988 Placing it behind the cake closer to the white board makes a smaller area of light bouncing back onto the cake, so the light isn't quite as soft. Normally, putting strobes farther away makes the light harsher (and that would apply here if I was bouncing it off a mirror instead of a white board), but bouncing it off a diffused surface makes that surface the light source, and a bigger area of light makes softer light. Second, that would make it harder not to photograph the strobe itself.

[ForrestTanaka]

@vyckdown I'm using EOS Utility for remote shooting, and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to auto-import a watched folder. So when I take a shot, it gets downloaded to a folder, and then Lightroom notices and imports it. Really cool!

[mfsore15]

Fantastic, wonderful job

[rezjrprod]

how did you setup lightroom to import the ones you shot on the eos software?

[MROPAPP]

Great Work :)

[hentaihime1]

@ForrestTanaka Thanks for the response Tanaka-san! ^_^ btw, your videos are very helpful to me. I wish to learn more from you sir! ^_^

[TheOCPhotographer]

Hi, I'm about to do my first food photography shoot and thought I'd go online for some research. Your video was amazing and helpful. Thank you.

Isaac

[rsi1986]

Thanks for posting this. I enjoy watching your videos because we both have similar setups.