Artificial Lighting for Food Photography

KitchenGoddess

KitchenGoddess

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George
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I know I haven't been around for quite a while but work etc and plenty of food photography has gotten in the way.

Just wondering if any of you could recommend a relatively inexpensive and very compact artificial lighting solution for food photography. As I do most of my work in the evenings I am no longer able to rely on purely natural light, blinking winter!

Thanks in advance.
 
"Very compact" and good studio lighting don't usually go well together. You tend to need a big light source, probably a softbox 60-100cm square, just for starters.

I seem to recall you are pushed for space, both on the work top and the floor. If you are working in a very small area it's going to be a tangle of light stands, cables, tripod etc.

See what you think of the Interfit kit, or whether you need to look for a different approach.
 
Looking at your website KG, some really good photography would improve things a lot. It's not bad in places, but a bit inconsistent with some blown highlights, camera shake, hard shadows, insufficient depth of field etc. Studio lighting would sort that, and give nice soft shadows and big glistening reflections off sauses and glaze etc.

Given that you are working with small subjects, you could probably get away with a smaller softbox about 60cm. You can light these with a hand flash gun but I think you'd benefit from having a modelling light to set up. Positioning can quite critical with table-top photography. All things considered, studio flash will be better and probably no less convenient at the end of the day, perhaps cheaper too. Then fill in with reflectors.

I used to do a bit of food photography and the usual starting point was a softbox pretty much directly above and slightly behind the subject - gives nice modelling and reflections/highlights. I used a boom-stand for that, which is ideal, but takes up quite a lot of floor area. Only one light usually, plus reflectors of course.

You could get a 200ws head (plenty powerful enough, especially working quite close) plus a 60cm softbox (eg collapsable Lastolite) and a boom-stand for £200-250. Keep it simple and you can get away without a flash meter.
 
I'd go either hoppy's way or if you have a flashgun already and are on a budget drive get a stand and softox and triggers for that which should come in sub 100 though you will lose recycle times and the modeling light

the only portable thing about those ex150's is the bag - it gets bloody heavy bloody quickonce you are carrying it
 
I think your choice will ultimately depend on how flexible you need it to be and the location in which you are shooting, but a single, large light-source with various modifiers and reflectors is your ideal set-up - how you achieve that depends on you.

If you're going to want to continue using your kitchen, I think a single Speedlite and a large softbox will be the order of the day. As nice as a single studio head would be (in terms of the size of softbox, modelling light, etc) I doubt you'll have the space to fit everything in.

If you've got another room to play with it might be worth looking at studio flash as opposed to Speedlites. You'll get all the advantages of the studio flash and the negatives (heat, space, etc) won't be that much of an issue.

But if you want to come up with an artificial lighting solution that will be in any way portable, the Speedlite/Ezybox Hotshoe* route would seem appropriate. You can take it anywhere and it should provide you all the light you need for your photography.

*There are cheaper alternatives to the Canon/Lastolite stuff - some of the imported Strobist stuff would do for now.
 
I took these for one of my C&G/LRPS submissions City & Guilds 7511 - level 3 - final submission year 2.

3486658655_b4bc35ac56.jpg


I used a large popup light tent from ebay with 4 different backgrounds, basic studio light set like the Interfit ones mentioned above, and a number of different props. Looking at the pics on your website, you are definately heading in the right direction, but I don't think the teatowels work. You ccould try and find some proper gingham material which would help.
 
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