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"Yangon Circular Railway" Yangon, Myanmar 2017 Fuji X-T2 + XF16mm f1.4 R WR + XF35mm f1.4 Instagram: jose_carpin_photographer Website: www.josecarpin.com 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Though the window in Sanyang, The Gambia. Fujifilm X-T3 & Fujinon XF23mmF2 R WR - ACROS Film Simulation Doing Dishes by Din Dayemi, on Flickr

In India

In Marrakech

Is this thread still a thing? I know I'm late to the party, but after looking at all that food, I feel compelled to comment. But first, I must say, many compliments to Chef! Your food looks awesome. As the second post notes, this is real food, not the staged stuff. I'm probably not smart enough to just stay out of this, especially since the thread is so old. However, I looked at all your photos on Flickr, and noticed a couple things. First, I see that every shot was in Auto Exposure mode, and your metering mode varied some. Your lighting also seemed to vary from ambient to occasional flash, although I didn't see any utilizing TTL. I haven't photographed any food, but I've done some product shots for my wife's craft endeavors. As a starting point for a shoot, I would suggest the following: If you're having trouble matching your lens to the framing in a manner that suits you, consider a small telephoto, but from what I see, your 50 mm lens should do OK. Put your camera in Manual mode. You'll need to know more about the scene than your camera does. Set your metering to Multi mode. Use a good speedlight off-camera with an umbrella or softbox. A light stand for your key light, and a tripod for the camera. Have a white reflector or two to control the shadows. Set the aperture wide open for framing only. Set the shutter to sync speed, or slower. Set the flash on manual at 1/4 power, and face it into the umbrella. Now set the aperture to f8 or f11. You won't be able to see the shot well, but the flash is now essentially your exposure, shutter speed, and key light. Take a test shot and evaluate. Move the flash power and/or compensate it until you get an exposure that suits you. If you don't want to go so far as the umbrella, you can probably do well bouncing the flash and using a reflector or two. You also mentioned you're working in a small space. I find using Camera Remote works well when you can't huddle around the camera body. Once you get a composition and light coverage you like, make the flash power the fine tuning for the exposure. I don't see a scenario such that the flash will do a good job on-camera. It needs to be off. Did you get an EF-X8 flash with your camera? I find that little flash in Commander mode works extremely well triggering any larger flash with an optical slave mode. I hope this helps literally anyone, but I can't write more right now; I'm going to the OP's website to look at more food right now.

Food photography is all about styling. Photography is simple, use a sturdy tripod since exposures can be on the long side, normal lens for natural perspective, f/8.0 or f/11 for adequate depth of field, base ISO setting. The Toit would do fine. Since the food is not in motion, there is no problem doing a four-second exposure at f/11 at ISO200. Unless you just can not get the whole image in focus, don't go much beyond f/11. Diffraction has already begun at f/11, though it is still not noticeable. Beyond f/11 it increases substantially. Do a test shot. If it is over or under, use the exposure compensation dial to nail it. The food is totally patient, so there is no need to rush while getting it right. Manual exposure works fine as well. Avoid wide apertures. Food really needs to be fully seen and shallow depth of field simply looks out of focus. Consider the background. Unless it carries with it some meaningful information, a bit of softness does not hurt. Of course, this nullifies the prime advantage of the 56mm, which is far more suited to photographing people where shallow DOF can be useful. If I needed the added focal length, I would trade for the brilliantly sharp 60mm f/2.4 which also gives you much more closeup capability. If you have not studied food styling, you will be amazed at the voodoo that goes into it. Most photographed food is inedible. That perfectly done turkey has been varnished the perfect colour and shine! Ice cream melts, so mashed potatoes or lard are used in its place. Ice also melts, so ice cubes and crushed ice is clear plastic. Sparkling vegetables have been sprayed with glycerine. Grapes get their patina via talcum powder. It is well covered on the web. Search for 'food photography tricks of the trade'. If anything the X-T2 is overkill. The images on your page are less than one megapixel. You are throwing away more than 23MP of detail. What could a more expensive camera possibly give you? If you were shooting food professionally, it is fully capable of display prints for use in mall food booths or restaurants, of enormous size and clarity. If you have doubts, don't take my word for it. Rent a dSLR and try using it and the X-T2 on the same setup.