The cakes in pastry rooms always have an attractive and beautiful appearance. Many people like to take pictures with their mobile phones before eating them, and I am no exception. But as a photographer, I am no longer satisfied with simply recording. I always think about how to make them more beautiful, just like in advertisements. So I used simple tools at home to realize my idea, and I share it with you here: DIY single light and double soft light to shoot mouth-watering desserts.
1. Shooting Ideas
When it comes to professional still life photography, many people may first think of a large soft box or a few studio lights, but most of us are not still life photographers and do not have those equipments. So how to take pictures? In fact, we only need sunshine, but good weather does not happen every day. I also want to take pictures on cloudy and rainy days, so what should I do? As long as you find the right place, even a flash can take good pictures. photo.
The picture below is my desk. My idea is to turn the rectangular space under the bookshelf on the left into a huge softbox and use it to simulate daylight shooting. So what should I do if I don’t have such a desk at home? It’s actually very simple. You can get the same effect as me by placing a large rectangular cardboard box at the corner of a white wall.
Design ideas
2. Equipment preparation
Equipment preparation
After the idea is clear, start preparing the tools, as shown in the picture below. My tools are very simple, namely: metz 36c-2 flash light, universal wireless flash trigger (this can be replaced by a PC flash wire, the same effect But the price is cheap), a piece of rice paper, a piece of book wrapping paper, and two reflective boards cut from leftover 1L milk cartons.
3. Lighting process
Light source: flash + homemade soft box
Flash
First set the flash to M, then point the lamp head toward the white wall to reflect the light. This is to make the light softer. It should be noted that the output power of my flash cannot be manually adjusted. With constant aperture and sensitivity, if you want to control the amount of light, you need to move the flash and increase or decrease the distance from the flash to the white wall. The longer the distance, the smaller the distance between the flash and the white wall. The smaller the amount of dipped beam.
Homemade soft box
After that, fix the rice paper on the outside with tape as shown in the picture below to form a curtain. Then my double softening softbox is ready. Simple! Rice paper is divided into raw Xuan and cooked Xuan. Please choose The whitest color is Shengxuan.
4. Setting process
Environment: Prepare appropriate tablecloths and plates
Appropriate tablecloths and plates
If you want to take a pro-looking photo, you need to find a tablecloth that matches the color of the food as a background. But beautiful tablecloths are usually expensive, so I use beautiful book wrapping paper instead. It only costs one yuan a piece. It doesn’t hurt to buy a few more to keep. The dinner plate is a glass product bought in the supermarket. It is very retro and beautiful, and the price is very cheap. Is it ready to shoot now? Wait, there is still a very critical step. That’s fill light!
5. Fill light process
Lighting: silver reflector fill light
There is no light source or reflection on the bottom and right side of the cake, so we must add light to these two sides of the cake, otherwise the shadow will be obvious and affect the appearance of the food. Although it can be brightened later, it will not look good. Naturally, so what can be done well in the early stage must be done well.
Silver reflector fills in light
Look, just surround the cake with the silver reflective surface inside the milk carton as shown in the picture below. Of course, you can also use a mirror instead, which is better than a milk carton.
Final Result
This is what it looked like in the final shot. Isn’t the effect great? In the later stage, I only mentioned the brightness of the shadows to make the cake color better, and left the other parts unchanged.
1/180 sec F/2.8 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm)
Summary of the main points and difficulties of this shooting:
1. Soft light is very important. If the flash is fired directly, the picture will be very vivid.Hard and the shadow will be very thick.
2. Precisely control the power of the flash to achieve perfect exposure and make the picture appear bright (look at the histogram after taking the shot, just keep it to the right but not overexposed).
3. The reflector is very important to fill in the light, which is the prerequisite for later adjustments.
4. Beautiful backgrounds and props overall enhance the professionalism of your photos.
