Hello again!

I tried to improve from my last critique and picked up a white plate etc etc. I am trying to like suggested to get a nice "white airy" look. I set the aperture to 1/100 to achieve this... but I think it's making the end part of the vegetables look blurry! The middle looks clear... but the sides seem to lose focus.

Any ideas of what to do? I really just want to get some of my food photos to be clear and have that "white airy" look.  Any help or other critiques would be greatly appreciated.

Oh and I tried uploading the original picture. But it won't let me, so am uploading a smaller version of it. Sorry about that, I know that was a comment last time.

Oh and I tried uploading the original picture. But it won't let me, so am uploading a smaller version of it. Sorry about that, I know that was a comment last time.

You'll have to try harder.  We can't tell from that tiny image.

BTW, you had your shutter speed set to 1/100.  Not your aperture.  Take some time to read up on how your camera works.

BTW, you had your shutter speed set to 1/100.

Your shutter speed must be set at a specific number to sync with the lights. Read your camera's manual to find out what that number is. Then you must change your lighting to correspond with the f stop you choose.

There are MANY good resources on the internet for photography lighting. Read everything you can about lighting food, or lighting in general.

Use tripod or monopod to keep focus after you half-pushed the button. Your problem is DOF (depth of field) and that's often the case with food, so go for minimum F16. I'm very bad at food shots myself, but I tried focus-bracketing a couple of times. There are great tutorial sites on the net for food photography. Google is your friend.

Quote from: snappyhappy on January 24, 2010, 07:06

Oh and I tried uploading the original picture. But it won't let me, so am uploading a smaller version of it. Sorry about that, I know that was a comment last time.

You'll have to try harder.  We can't tell from that tiny image.

BTW, you had your shutter speed set to 1/100.  Not your aperture.  Take some time to read up on how your camera works.

As Mr Locke mentioned so astutely, you have alot of work to do.
Get to know your camera. Get to know the proper glossary. You have to start with Photography 101 before trying to shoot like Mr. Locke.

Sharpness, definition of all around the image, clarity, etc.. are all part of basic photography.
Do your homework to understand depth of field with each aperture (f/stop). those little things you see on your lens... is expressed as a fraction of the aperture. ie. eg. 22 16 is smaller than 4.5, 1.4,etc
the other thing you mentioned is the shutter speed, not the aperture as Mr Locke corrected you .
That is shutter speed. the higher those numbers, 100, 200, the more you are able to freeze an image and help to get your images to be clearer. 30, 15, are the slow speed that you will use when you are using a lower ISO (film speed) , and these are more predominant when you are in a low light situation, like a shopping centre, etc.. remember, i did not say make an image sharper,
because to make sharp image entails a lot of thing, holding a camera still, choosing the right speed to capture motion, choosing the right aperture to give you more depth of field. (usually, placing your point of focus some 1/3 of the oject area will provide you detail in front and 2/3 behind).
sharpness is not gain in depth of field. intense sharpness is achieved
with a point of focus which is not depth of field.
depth of field is more like our eye sight's "perepheral vision",, not "sharpest images, " but apparent "overall clarity".
but we won't get to that today. you will have to find that out with your own effort.
there is no free lunch in excellence 

back to your image. lighting again is yet another thing you have to master if you want to make that shot.  notice how you got the plate "white off" and the shadow a bit on the dark side.
this is due to your improper lighting, or placement of the object.
one point source of light, no doubt, maybe a window light or something else.
thus you have the shadow down there and the top "washed out".

if you are using existing light, you can still make an excellent product shot.
in fact, all of my product shots are just that, window lighting.
but you have to bring in some form of supplement lighting. reflectors , fill flash,etc..
to balance off the lighting so the highlight (which is the top section) will not be "washed out"
due to over exposure. and so that the bottom part (the shadow area) will not be so dark.

you use those supplementary lighting to "fill in" where there is lack of light,
and or you can use a "go-bo" (go between)  to block off or shade off , say the top area
where there is too much light.

it's a lot of details, yes. but all these mysteries can be solved if you took the time to learn
how to see these imbalance of light, and then apply your exposure properly to place those
"white" airy ambience that you say you want to make.

Ambience is more or less the dispersion of light to create that glow. No, not less flare, but glow.
Light captured by fast shutter speed does not give the exposure enough to capture luminscence.
Slow shutter speed allows for the ambience or glow to be record on film or digital media.

Again, you will know this after you do your homework.

Then , before all this, you have to know your lens so you don't get yet another problem
ie. the built in "defects" of glass.  Vignette, bellow, pincushion, etc.. are some new words you will discover.

Find the "sweet spot" (critical aperture),, the sharpest portion of your lens
and try to use this. This will give you a crisp clear clean image all the time.
If the sweet spot, mine is usually around f 8  requires you to use a tripod, then use one.
Using a tripod also "slows" you down to make you more conscious of your image.
You have the luxury to wait and inspect, relocate to rearrange to a better composition (argghhh, yet another thing you have to learn inPhotography 101),
and to get the proper exposure. (arghh, yet again. it's not just something your camera is smart enough to know when you are shooting isolated objects or background that is too light or too dark
away from the neutral intensity of light that auto matic meter always renders the "proper" exposure.

Try not to reach for the stars, when you're still not ready to grab a tree.
Hit the photo manual and text books and instruction of basic photography
before you try to shoot something that Mr. Locke or Ansel Adams, or even me... lol...
are doing.

We spent a lot of time shooting boring things like shoes and boxes to learn to "see light"
before we even did our first "commercial" assignment.

It's so much easier for you now, with digital to practise at no cost.
During my days, and Mr Locke's day I am sure, we had to spend a lot of our lunch money from our parents on films to master the basics of photography.

Get your foundation strong , or else you won't build a house that will stand firmly.
Keep shooting,
but as the french say,  "un chose a la fois" ( one step at the time")

I disagree with the statements above regarding depth of field.

The trend today for food shots is to use a shallow depth-of-field. Check out kcline's port on istock. She is one of the top food photographers on istock, if not the top photographer. Her dof is very shallow. I personally typically shoot at f/5.6 or f/8. There are times when I shoot f/16, but for the most part I shoot around f/8.

That being said, a full-on, top shot like you have done in your example here would probably work better at around f/16. If you are shooting a low angle, front on view of the food, the trend is to shoot shallow. IMHO of course.

good point.

the fact lies in that dof is periphereal and really not "sharpest".
a shallow dof gets your point of focus in the sharpest part of the lens, and then she lets the rest of the area go shallow, (shallow, NOT out of focus), to create the ambience.

Yes, all the magazines that pride the best home econmics shots and food shots do use shallow-er dof for this reason.
it's actually more difficult than just shooting with full dof, because you need to have the eye
to see which point of interest you need to concentrate.
this is why kcline is that good.
it's not just grab one edge of the steak and let the rest fall into place.
it's using the correct aperture to create the ambience .

well pointed out cclapper

... BTW, you had your shutter speed set to 1/100.  Not your aperture.  Take some time to read up on how your camera works.

That's the best advice.

I don't mean to offend you snappyhappy, but honestly... it seems you know nothing about photography.  

You should read some good  books, search information on the web or find a local school.

Good luck!

OMG!!! LOL!!! I was (obviously) VERY confused.
Thank you all so much for commenting on my post. I really appreciate it. I don�t know if you read my post in the newbie section, but I am an English teacher-- in a very rural area in Japan. I would seriously love to take a class or meet other photographers, but my Japanese is not good enough to do something like that! Plus don�t even know if there is anything like that around here in the boonies. (The nearest movie theater is about an hour away on a good day�and costs 20 bucks for a ticket!). If I was back in the states, I would pick up a book from the library, or take a community college class. But unfortunately at the moment I don�t have that kind of luxury.
I have tried to find something on the internet to teach me, but I guess I am not carving out sufficient time to do so or finding the right ones. It�s also overwhelming with all the information out there on google. Any website recommendations for that photography 101 that I so desperately need??? I guess I just prefer books where you can flip through the pages, and look through the index, or table of contents to find out what you need...  but there are no English book for miles around where I am.

OMG!!! LOL!!! I was (obviously) VERY confused.
Thank you all so much for commenting on my post. I really appreciate it. I don�t know if you read my post in the newbie section, but I am an English teacher-- in a very rural area in Japan. I would seriously love to take a class or meet other photographers, but my Japanese is not good enough to do something like that! Plus don�t even know if there is anything like that around here in the boonies. (The nearest movie theater is about an hour away on a good day�and costs 20 bucks for a ticket!). If I was back in the states, I would pick up a book from the library, or take a community college class. But unfortunately at the moment I don�t have that kind of luxury.
I have tried to find something on the internet to teach me, but I guess I am not carving out sufficient time to do so or finding the right ones. It�s also overwhelming with all the information out there on google. Any website recommendations for that photography 101 that I so desperately need??? I guess I just prefer books where you can flip through the pages, and look through the index, or table of contents to find out what you need...  but there are no English book for miles around where I am.

These two books will teach you about exposure and lighting. You can buy them from any online bookstore:
-Exposure and Lighting for Digital Photographers Only. By Michael Meadhra  and Charlotte K. Lowrie 
-Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera. By Bryan Peterson

And these sites which even have forum where you can meet people witrh same interests:
http://www.studiolighting.net/
http://www.photoflexlightingschool.com/
http://strobist.blogspot.com/

OMG!!! LOL!!! I was (obviously) VERY confused.
Thank you all so much for commenting on my post. I really appreciate it. I don�t know if you read my post in the newbie section, but I am an English teacher-- in a very rural area in Japan. I would seriously love to take a class or meet other photographers, but my Japanese is not good enough to do something like that! Plus don�t even know if there is anything like that around here in the boonies.

I sympathise - I always see this sort of advice; it must be an American thing to have classes people can just drop into. Hereabouts there are full time photography classes but not evening or weekend courses. Several years ago I was astonished to see a 'studio techniques/lighting evening class and I phoned up to be told "it's not really a class, it's just cheap studio use for our last year's graduates".
Good luck.

Snappy, it sounds like you have a really interesting life!  If I might make a suggestion, in addition to the excellent ones about improving your photographic skills, it would be to take advantage of the unique subject matter that your life in Japan offers.

Instead of wasting time trying to upload boilerplate subjects that everyone else has already done to death, why not photograph the beautiful landscape, architecture, local cuisine, and people (if you can get releases) in the area of Japan you live in?  You could have your own unique niche!

good advice, lisa!

snappy, where in japan are you? i did a summer abroad studying at ICU during my college years and also did a homestay in hokkaido. haven't been back since. good luck with your photography!

Thanks guys!!!

Good idea Lisafx! You have given me new inspiration! I have some photos of the landscape around here! I should shoot around locally more!!!

And ap, I live in the opposite end of Japan where you were! I live on the southern island, KYUSHU!!! Known for it's warmth, but still very cold right now, (because it's the middle of winter!