Camera Suggestion - Food Photography

  • Thread starter Thread starter gingerweasel
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gingerweasel

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I need a good quality camera for some food photography I'm planning. Very much along these lines: http://www.ambrosiabaking.com/2012/02/cherry-coke-float-cupcakes.html

I have long since sold up my photography gear and I'm not looking to get caught up in the equipment whoring again so ideally I want a non-interchangeable system or something similar (no full DSLR setups).

  • Excellent IQ
  • Shallow depth of field

I'm not totally again a single constant light setup but I'd prefer to use natural light.
 
For starters we probably need a budget?

And also with most camera's, the lens determines your depth of field, not the camera. Whether that be 1.2/1.4 and so on.
 
If you really want to emulate that sort of shot, I think you might be struggling with a non-interchangeable-lens camera. The small sensors and relatively large apertures mean that you typically get a very large depth of field.

I think you need a DSLR with a tilt-shift lens. (But I suspect you know that already.) Personally I'd go for a Canon 5D with a 90mm tilt-shift.
 
I'd hoped that some of the new additions to the market would have managed to achieve a good balance between sensor size, aperture and simplicity.

My budget is around £400.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You can get shallow-ish depth of field with something like a Canon S95 in macro mode, see some examples here.
 
joebh123 said:
For starters we probably need a budget?

And also with most camera's, the lens determines your depth of field, not the camera. Whether that be 1.2/1.4 and so on.
Click to expand...

Not quite.
A 1.4 std lens on a compact will have greater DoF at the same distance than a 1.8 lens on a APSC DSLR.

A 2.8 std lens at the same distance on a large format camera will have a smaller DoF too.

DoF is a physical characteristic of focal length, aperture and distance. Bear in mind that it's actual focal length not equivalent.

At non macro distances a compact camera is not really suited to shallow DoF.
 
Not quite.

Phil V said:
Not quite.
A 1.4 std lens on a compact will have greater DoF at the same distance than a 1.8 lens on a APSC DSLR.

A 2.8 std lens at the same distance on a large format camera will have a smaller DoF too.
Click to expand...

Both statements are quite wrong.

At F/1.4 a lens at the same focal length and distance on a smaller, will have a smaller DoF than a bigger sensor/F/1.8 (however the framing is different)

At F/2.8, same focal length, distance from subject, the DOF remains constant, however the framing is changed.
 
Won't you need some off camera flash for that work too?

I'd recommend a dSLR with one lens too then a few speedlights and remote triggers.
 
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