Appetising close-ups of your food photos

appetising close up food photography blog social media how to details lighting camera best settings tips — With a compact digital camera set to close-up (or macro) mode, you can move your camera literally centimetres away from the food. The examples, above, demonstrate the visual effects of capturing details to give your food photos an exquisite feeling using macro mode

Beautiful close-up food photos on your blog can add visual texture for the eyes to feast on. Guinevere Sofer takes a closer look at how that’s done

By Guinevere Sofer

Want your food shots to look appealing and delicious? Well, sometimes you need to get in closer, and closer, and closer to the food.

These types of shots are called close-up or “macro” shots. Fortunately, this is a simple technique which doesn’t require much fuss, but has great impact.

CLOSE-UP SIMPLICITY AT THE TOUCH OF A BUTTON

Simply set your camera to the icon with the flower. Almost every consumer camera, from phone cams to digital compact cameras, has one. Typically, they are located on the dial, a button, or in the menu settings on your camera.

When the camera is set to close-up (or macro) mode, it allows the camera to focus closer – much closer than it ordinarily could, to the subject matter. By moving closer, the picture of the food naturally gets bigger and more dramatic.

appetising close up food photography blog social media how to details lighting camera best settings tips

RICHNESS IN DETAILS

The whole objective of getting closer is to capture the fine details. The glistening oil, moistness, texture of meat, sprinkles of spices, or even the steam rising from piping hot soup bring out the visual richness of food into your photos.

But you’d need the right type of camera to achieve that goal.

THE RIGHT CAMERA FOR THE JOB

Phone cams are generally convenient, but they are limited in their ability to capture the details. Take a moment to look at your phone’s camera lens. Chances are, they are the size of a pinhole – tiny, very tiny.

Their tiny-sized openings are terrible at squeezing fine details through. (A technical principle too lengthy to explain here.)
Fortunately, when it comes to details, you can use your compact digital camera. They have larger lenses and larger sensors. Both features easily outperform in terms of capturing details.

And, in terms of convenience, the latest compact digital cameras are just as portable and as compact as handphones.

So, if you are taking photos for your blog or sharing it with your friends, try using a compact digital camera in the close-up mode; and don’t be afraid to get within centimetres, literally, of your gourmet dish!