07/02/2014
One of my students requested for a special food photography session. He had already taken food photography lessons under me. He another food photography session but placed a restriction. We could only use an off-camera flash and a piece of bond paper to diffuse its light.
Our food photography class session was held at L’Incontro Ristorante Italiano. They’re located at 207 Nicanor Garcia st. (formerly Reposo) in Makati City. They were surprised when we started to shoot the food we had ordered. I explained that I was conducting a class on food photography and they let us be.
There were three of us present during the session. We had a variety of Canon gear. I was using a Canon EOS 5d Mk3 and a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro lens. My first student was using a Canon EOS 7d and a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L macro lens. My second student brought a Canon EOS 500d and a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens.
We lit all our shots with an off-camera Canon 600 EX-RT flash that was triggered using a FlashWaves Mk3 RF trigger and receiver. All our incident strobe readings were measured using a Sekonic L-308s light meter.
We had an A3 sized piece of bond paper that we used to diffuse the light from our flash.
The food looked so good that we found ourselves rushing the shoot of each dish to be able to eat it right away. We weren’t disappointed. The food was tasted great and was worth the trip.
Simple lighting gear can produce great results if you're willing to experiment.