For photographing details of food, get a macro lens that lets you get in really close to your subject. Macro food photography is a big thing and it can help you capture some amazingly detailed and moody shots.
If you are a beginner then you likely won’t have all the best equipment with you. This is where being a little crafty will come in handy. Check out online tutorials and figure out how you can use the resources you do have in the best way possible. There are many people out there who can create excellent food images just using their phone, a window, and some photo editors.
If you have some cash, get a prime lens to start your journey. Getting a humble 50mm f/1.8 or a 35mm f/1.8 won’t cost your too much but the results you will get can be worthy of professional gourmet food photography. A prime lens is usually sharper than a zoom lens too and will mostly be a significant upgrade from your kit lens.
If you decide to use a tripod, consider using a short 2-second timer to take the photo. This is important because it almost completely eliminates camera shake as the camera will have 2 seconds to stabilize completely between the time you press the shutter and the time it takes the photo.
If you want the sharpest results you can get, you should use a tripod to carefully set up your shot. A tripod will take away any jitters that could come into play if you were shooting handheld.
The ISO value controls your camera’s sensitivity to light. In simple words, a higher ISO value can brighten up your images quite a bit. But this also comes with more noise. So, the best idea is to use a lower ISO and couple that with a wider aperture and a slower shutter speed to get the most light into your sensor without having to rely too much on ISO. It’s best to take some test shots with your camera at different ISO values to see when visible noise starts to creep in.
As stated earlier, when choosing a food photography lens, go for one with a wide aperture. This will help you capture more light from the scene and also allow you to use a faster shutter speed. Not only that, but a wide aperture can also let you draw the viewer’s eye towards a certain part of the image while blurring everything else out. You can get some very nice and creative images in this way. However, if you want the whole frame to be tack sharp then you can use a narrower aperture. This will reduce the amount of light that reaches the camera sensor but create a more evenly focused image.
A faster shutter speed will allow you to ‘freeze’ the frame quicker. This will help in reducing any camera shake or blurring effect that you may get with a slower shutter speed, especially if you’re taking the photos handheld. You may want to stick with a safe number, like 1/125th of a second, to make sure that your images don’t get affected by camera shake and come out sharp.
Part of the beauty of outdoor photography is the tremendous opportunities that it offers. There are so many different types of images that you can capture, from reflections and waterfalls to wildlife images, close-ups and macros, standard landscape images, outdoor portraits and more. Don’t be afraid to try your hand at different types of photography, you just might find a new niche that you genuinely enjoy.
Outdoor photography is a great chance to capture some wildlife images. Wildlife is usually best captured with a telephoto lens, somewhere between 100mm and 300mm is ideal. This will allow you to get up close to the animals, without frightening them away. With wildlife photography, you’ll usually want to use a small aperture, of around f/16, to capture sharp and in-focus details.