Food shooting at Asti with an exhilarating lens. Yummy sharp.

Ravioli. Asti. ©2014 Kirk Tuck

First of all I'd like to thank everyone for the comments and e-mails congratulating my family on Ben's graduation. It was heartwarming to read all the good wishes for us. He's looking forward to one last, action packed Summer in Austin and then off for new adventures. 

And speaking of new adventures I wanted to give you a quick look at some food images that we did on the fly, during our video shoot, at Asti Trattoria here in Austin, Texas. Chef and owner, Emmett Fox does a fabulous job turning out wonderful food and we've got a handful of SD cards with many beautiful, moving shots of the beautifully plated food. Close up motion pictures of food is one area where I don't believe a slider can be over used....

But what I really wanted to show off was the 35-100mm f2.8 X lens for the Panasonic G cameras. When I made my switch over from the full frame Sony cameras I had a few concerns that I might not be able to get the same, luscious, shallow depth of field and biting sharpness that I used to take for granted with the 70-200mm 2.8 lens. I was wrong. If anything I think the lens for the Panasonic cameras is a much better optic, overall, than the aging Sony lens. It is discernibly sharper, wide open and the colors are wonderful. Especially welcome when you consider the differences in camera sensors. 

These images were all shot at either f2.8 or at f3.5. They started life as large Jpeg files and I've done very little post processing to them. If I were highly proficient at PhotoShop I'm sure I could do lots of little magic steps to make every image look just a little better but I am happy with the almost untouched files. What did I add? A little contrast and a tiny bit of shadow lifting. That's it.

I feel like I hit the jackpot with the 12-35mm and the 35-100mm lenses. They cover a great range, have the same look and feel, operate in the same way and even offer good, solid image stabilization. 

With the recent addition of the 7-14mm I am a bit disappointed because there are so few new toys to lust after. I guess when people bitch about a camera system having a limited range of lenses they aren't complaining because there is some sort of image they are unable to shoot, rather they are making a statement about how disappointing it is not to have more things to buy. 

While the GH4 is not a perfect camera (a bit too much noise as we move up the ISO ladder) and I'm sure I'll be first in line for the GH5, I am delighted with everything that's come out of the lenses. 

Finally, there is an old myth that says all food that gets photographed is doused with motor oil, burned with torches and covered with glycerin and food coloring. Happily that is never the case in my work on in casa de Asti. When Chris and I finished photographing this food we munched on it with happy abandon before moving on to our next shots. It was delicious. But we could see that through the lens.....

I should call images like this: Stuff we shoot between sliding the cameras.

Seafood and Risotto. Asti. ©Kirk Tuck

Ravioli, v2. Asti. ©Kirk Tuck

Seafood and Risotto v2. Asti. ©Kirk Tuck

Carpaccio Salad. Asti. ©Kirk Tuck

Ice Cream and Bread Pudding. Sony and LED lights.

I'm so happy I took a refresher course in food photography by buying Nicole S. Young's book on food photography. It was easily my most effective purchase of continuing education in all of 2013. The underlying principles of the craft are pretty much the same as they've been for quite a while but Nicole did a nice job explaining them and reminded me to use certain techniques that just make food look better. The printed book is a whopping $14 on Amazon. And it's useful even for people who don't necessarily shoot food. Just buy it and put it in your library. Pull it out next time you plan on cooking something great and you just want to show off your culinary chops to your friends.

So, why was I re-reading Nicole's book? Because I'm working with a gifted marketing guy on a restaurant project. My part of the project (as I'm sure you've guessed by now) is to make heroic and tasty shots of the food. The image above is one of many we shot last week. Right before my immersion into boots.

This image was lit by two big 1000 LEDs above and behind the food. The two LED panels are scrimmed or modified by a white diffusion panel on a 24 inch by 36 inch frame. They are color corrected with 1/4 minus green gel filters. While they are called minus green filters they are actually magenta. The magenta cancels out the green, hence minus green in the name. I get them at a movie supply house here in Austin called, GEAR.

The backlight is reflected back into the front of the food by two big, white reflectors. The reflectors are used as close to the food as I can get them and still keep them out of the shot.  I love the way the back lighting makes the green mint leaf translucent.

I shot this wonderful combination of ice cream, drizzled caramel and bread pudding in a hurry to I could catch it before it all melted into itself. But at least the melting process was slower than it would have been with tungsten lights. Even the tungsten lights in electronic flash modeling lights.

Before the dish arrived on the table I did a careful custom white balance using a small, collapsible Lastolite gray/white balance target. Getting the color balance nailed down in the shooting process means more consistent files in post production and, by extension, more consistent exposures. Get one of the targets and stick it in your bag. It will improve the technical quality of your work. Really.

I used my Sony a99 camera with the 70-200mm f2.8 G lens to make this image. I used the lens near 180mm and as close as it would focus, cropping a little bit to get the exact composition I wanted.

We wrapped our Austin food shoot around 6pm and I was in San Antonio by 8pm to get ready for the next day's shoot. The economy seems like it's really thawing out. I'm busy and loving it.

A new plug for a great "how to" book.

I talked about this book last week. I'd purchased the Kindle version and was just knocked out at how great it looked on my iPad and how well written and illustrated it is. That, and a $13 price on Amazon prompted me to immediately order a printed version for myself. I found it in the mailbox today and all I can say is.....WOW!!!!!
It is so well designed, well thought out and well written that I'm going around showing non-photographers the book. The images are wonderful and ample, even better than what I saw on the iPad and, of course, much bigger and richer.

If you have any interested in food photography at all this is without a doubt the best book I've come across on the subject. The bonus is zillions of pages of really wonderfully done food.