Tutorial
The Best Lighting for Food Photography
A comparison of the different lighting situations you might find yourself in and how to make the most of it.
by Kenny Chung
Tutorial
The Best Lighting for Food Photography
A comparison of the different lighting situations you might find yourself in and how to make the most of it.
by Kenny Chung
Lighting makes all the difference in food photography. It can be the difference between a dish looking mushy and bland, and one that looks vibrant and mouth-watering.
Not everyone has the budget for a professional food photographer. However, that doesn’t necessarily prohibit you from being able to put your best food forward online. Here’s a list of six of the most common restaurant lighting scenarios, and how to best adapt to them. They are listed in relative order of personal preference.
1) Well-lit indoor lighting + a professional camera + an external flash unit.
This is the best case scenario. You want the room where you’re taking photos to be well-lit (but not too bright as to cause shadows). And you want to supplement that lighting with an external flash unit (either controlled by your DSLR/SLR camera, or dialed in manually). This will help highlight any dark spots. I would advise against pointing the flash directly at the dish, as it may cause it to look washed out.
Pros: Best quality photos. High level of detail.
Cons: Most equipment required. Difficult to get right without prior experience, or a ton of trial and error. Post-processing also likely for best results.
2) Indirect natural sunlight.
Natural sunlight is amazing. Compared to sterile fluorescent lights, the sun provides a more (pardon the pun) warm glow to food. However, you should avoid direct angles if possible, which will depend on where you are in relation to the window/skylight/atrium and the time of day. So make sure you time your photo sessions carefully.
Pros: Warm, inviting photos. Little extraneous equipment required.
Cons: Lack of control over the sun. Not all restaurants have access to this level of natural lighting.
3) Direct natural sunlight.
Not the greatest, but also not the worst. Depending on things like cloud cover and light intensity, you can make do. However, if the sun is too bright, it’ll be tough to recover details, even with a professional camera and editing software.
Pros: Little equipment required.
Cons: Photos can look washed out. Lack of control. Lighting may change drastically.
4) Dimly lit indoor setting + camera phone + no flash.
Smartphone cameras have really come a long way. These days, most modern phones have low-light settings that can recover details to an acceptable degree. This is far from my preferred setting, but you can make it work.
Pros: No equipment required.
Cons: Lack of detail. Post-processing typically required to compensate for dim lighting.
5) Dimly light indoor setting + camera phone + external flash.
If you need to use your phone in a darkened setting, I would recommend relying on some external light. This could be someone else’s phone flash light (indirectly), or an external lighting unit (like a selfie flash ring). You can also use something like a candle, but the flickering will make it hard to focus and time your shot correctly. This is far from the ideal scenario, but it’s not the absolute worst.
Pros: Not the absolute worst.
Cons: Hard to control lighting exactly. Photos will likely need to be edited in post.
6) Dimly light indoor setting + camera phone flash.
This actually is the absolute worst. It combines the worst qualities of all scenarios. Camera phone flashes are notoriously bright, especially in dark settings. To this day, I have not found a phone that can control the flash intensity in any meaningful way.
Pros: No equipment required, but not worth it.
Cons: Photos will look washed out. Color tone will be tough to fix in post. Photos look unprofessional.
