Flash or No Flash?
I’ve always been a simple point and shoot person. My camera is perpetually set to “auto flash.” I’ve had the camera for not quite a year and only recently started doing things like “cropping.”
As I take more and more food pictures, the thing I’ve noticed I like about other bloggers’ photos are the brightness of the pictures. I love seeing the color saturated photos and think they are amazing.
I’m not quite ready to photoshop or get a more expensive camera but I’ve been playing around with the settings on my little Canon. The one thing people tell me is look for natural light and no flash. However, I tend to eat at dark places and I’m still trying to remember not to set the flash.
Here are a some pics from last night’s Buttermilk Truck run.
Poll time! Do you like flash?
w/ flash, cropped, auto-adjusted
I noticed the “auto-adjust” button today. I think it looks good.
cropped, no flash
You might wonder what the hell am I eating since I took these banana peanut butter bites with no flash. Granted, there’s a lot of powdered sugar as well.
I find when I take things with flash and there’s a lot of white in the photo, it doesn’t work out as well. I should also note these pictures were taken outside in the dark with not a lot of light around.
Next is a cropped photo with no flash but auto-adjusted.
cropped, no flash, auto-adjusted
Best photo? Let me know. I don’t think so. I suppose I’m enjoying the photography process and improving my vaguely fuzzy photographs.
Oh, how were the pancake bites?
Well, for someone who hates pancakes, I enjoyed these. I thought the powdered sugar gave it enough sweetness and so I skipped the syrup. And they were more on the banana side with a pop of peanut butter every now and then. Just perfect. You got at least 6 of ’em for the $5. I also sampled my friend’s chocolate chip pancake bites and I preferred mine. I did overhear someone who got the red velvet pancake bites proclaim hers to be better than sex. Damnit, I need se… I mean, red velvet pancake bites now. Oh well, next time!
Back to flash or no flash.
Let’s move inside. But it’s not my usual “dark” restaurant. Simpang Asia, an Indonesian cafe and market has a fair amount of light and my noodles partner-in-crime who takes great photos on an expensive itty bitty camera said “no flash!”
with flash, auto-adjusted
I kind of like the color of the chips.
no flash, auto-adjusted
Hm, I kind of still like my photo with the flash on! But I do think this photo has better looking spinach. I suppose it looks more “real.”
I’ll write a separate post on Simpang Asia with all the photos (mostly taken without flash) but in the meantime, this gado gado (spinach and tofu salad with peanut dressing) was quite good.
no flash. 😀
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I’m self-teach photography tricks to myself as well. I find that most of my photos are best with no flash. If you’re worried about low light, use the highest ISO on your camera. Hope that helps!
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I’m going to have to figure out what this ISO thing is on the camera first! 🙂
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No flash. I’ve almost been turned off on going to some restaurants when I’ve seen unappetizing pictures of their dishes, until I realize its the horrid built in flash with most cameras that wash out any goodness out of the food.
If your camera doesn’t have a large f-stop, just try to stay still for longer exposure shots, or even bring a tabletop tripod for stability.
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I don’t think I can ever bring myself to get a tripod or a fancier camera…it just isn’t me. But I do want to take the best pics I can with what I got. So, I will have to stablize my somewhat shaky photographs by resting my elbows on the table.
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Here’s a neat trick that Vern taught me —
Use flash, but take the photo far away from the food rather than up close. In post processing, crop the image to focus on the food. This will save you from taking photos that are over exposed and whited-out. God luck!
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Ah! Thanks for the tip! That’s what I’ve been doing now- flash and not that close in. Everytime I’ve gone in for a closer picture (with flash), it washes out or goes blurry.
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I say no flash too. Highlights are too harsh when shooting food close up and, more importantly, it annoys other diners. Some basic Photoshop (or other simpler software) can bring up those levels.
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I’m going to take a couple of pics- flash and no flash to compare from now on but it sounds like when I do no flash, I need to up the ISO. The ones shown above (with no flash) are pretty weird to me. Weird meaning not good. I do like the discovery process and hope the learning curve isn’t too high!
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The issue is that your non-flash photos need more exposure. Use a higher ISO, and set your exposure compensation to +1EV or so.
Also, Chinese is a subset of Asian. 😉
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Eh. If people keep talking about race/ ethnicity then we’re never going to become just people. I am a person and I resent people asking me “what am I.” I am Asian in their eyes, yes but not in mine. I don’t identify “Asian.” I don’t like people stereotyping me.
But this isn’t about your post.
Thanks for your reply
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BTW, I also really don’t think of myself as “Chinese” either in that sense. As I’ve said, ethnically Chinese but doesn’t mean I’m culturally Chinese. If anything, I suppose you can say I’m culturally Chinese American. Emphasis, American.
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