Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. Today on The Slanted Lens I’m going to show you my favorite lighting
setup for photographing or filming food. Not only that we’re going to show you a great
parallax move that really brings that food alive, makes it look really stunning. Let’s
get started, see what we can do. Wow that’s a mouthful. But it’s good.
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On April 30th I’ve got my first workshop. Come and let me mentor you on how to shoot
in all different lighting situations. We’re gonna have a lot of fun.
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Okay so let’s take a look at our lighting set up here. When I shoot food I just love
a top back light. The reality is, is when you take a look at any kind of a subject matter,
anything that’s in the zero, which is at the camera, to 90 degrees, that area, 0-90
degrees, is -- goes from super flat to a little better to a little better, I think light looks
better when you cross 90 degrees. So at 95 degrees, one hundred degrees. When you slowly
get slightly behind the subject matter. Food is exactly that. If this light was coming
in from the front, this food is gonna be flat, flat. When you et it up, I now have all the
shadows that drop towards the camera. Just gives you a nice separation as you go ar--
uh, down. So one light, just that simple light from behind, kind of separates everything,
throws a little bit of shadow to the subject matter. SO now this is not people. We’re
photographing objects. And I just love that top, back look. If you add to that I usually
do--. I love a kind of a rim light off to camera left side. So I’m gonna add this
vector light right here. And you can see in the example, I’m now just adding a little
bit of a -- kind of a side light. And I like this one to be just a little more punchy than
this one on the top. ‘Cause it’ll give me a nice kind of highlights on the glass.
It’ll give me a little bit of highlights on some of our subject matter. Anything that’s
moist is gonna give us a highlight on. When I shoot top back, the biggest problem with
shooting top back is this. If this bread is up like this, major highlights, because I’m
getting just an instant angle straight off from the bread. So I just get the thing up,
let the shadow fall forward, I can get that pot in, you see it there, right there. Kate
can see it right there. Where I just get the shadow, just enough that I start to get a
little bit of highlight across the front of the bread, it looks pretty. One of the reasons
why I like this dark background for this food to be on is because it can take a lot of light.
That top back light, and it’s not gonna over expose, it looks really nice.
Now I’m gonna add something to separate it from the background. I’ve got a nice
blue background tha-- back there. And this’ll help me to kind of it’ll give me a little
bit of highlight in my bottles, and the things. We started out shooting honey, the very first
shot. So when I turn this backlight on, it really does a nice job of separating that
honey. It gives us a glow in the little pot of honey. Gives us a nice light, you can raise
this up, make it brighter or darker. I kept it pretty subdued. Just kind of give me a
little wash of blue from the bottom, horizon up. And it gives me a nice look there. So
there’s my first three lights. I’ve got a top back, a side back, and a background.
Everything is from behind. Now you can bring in and you can put in here, uh, If you feel
like this it too dark, the honey shot we did was not. Uh, some of the other food shots
you’ll see in this, there’s a whole series of food shots we did for a commercial for
a company called iGourmet. You’ll bring in a white card, uh, and you kind of fill,
let this light from the front, bounce back in and open up the shadows of the -- of the
objects in the front. You kind of use those sparingly. I want this to be bright, I don’t
want that. Or I want the whole thing to be bright when we bring it in. The last light
we added was a -- a fill light from the camera. So we put a vector light back at the camera,
behind the camera. Turned that on and that just opened up the shadows a little bit in
the front. Not much. We kept that very low because most of our subjects are in glass
containers and we didn’t need a lot of fill for the foreground. So we’ve got this great
top back light. But now what do we do as we film this thing? How are we gonna make it
come alive and look interesting? You know the difference between a d photographer and
a film maker is camera movement. So we want the camera to move. We want the camera to
always be moving. And so to accomplish that we got two or three different things. We use
a slider, obviously. Because that gives us a solid platform for the camera to just simply
move in our scene. The very first thing we’re gonna is called a -- just a standard linear
move. We’re gonna move from right to left. And I’m gonna measure out-- . I want to
move about a foot and a half. I don’t need to go very far. In that foot and a half, I’m
going to leave my focus on the foreground, and that’s the subject matter, the olives,
as I arrive there they’ll be in focus. So I’ve got it setup to be able to get my first
move here. I’ve got my recording, and as I record as we go across this is now going
to just romance across. I’m not gonna use all of this by any means. I’m gonna use
it as I finally, as it comes in right now, as I get to my olives, and I start to show
my subject matter. Now the things in the background are moving at a different pace than the foreground.
It looks very interesting, it’s a very nice looking shot. I’ll let it run and get it
past my olives and onto that, because I don’t know where I’m gonna want to get out of
it. If I want to come back to it later and use it again. But I get both those. So I’ve
got that nice little move. I’ve got this set to come back, so it goes right back to
one so I can do it again. So there’s your first and easiest way to
use a slider. The second things is my favorite and it’s a parallax move. That means that
the camera is moving in a horizontal fashion, but the subject matter always stays in the
center of the frame. And so what happens is the camera is moving right to left, and the
lens is moving from left to right. It’s gonna slowly crab back and look at your subject
matter. So that it just kind of pass. The subject matter always stays in the middle.
It’s a wonderful look. So let’s take a look at how we can do our parallax move using
our Syrp system. First off our Genie’s gonna give us our right to left, our linear. And
our Genie Mini is going to give us our parallax that’s gonna pull the camera back from left
to right. I’ve taken, and I’ve-- on my phone app, gotten the Genie so that I can
zero it out when I look straight at the olives. It’s on zero degrees, on the little ball
head here. This is a ball head made by Syrp which makes it so easy. Now when I go to the
last positions now when I get to the last position I simply take this, refocus it on
my olives. I look down at my degrees and it says 27, about 20-- a little over 25. So I’m
gonna say 27 degrees. I simply punch that in to my move on the bottom. That the-- I’m
gonna go a foot and a half with my Genie, and it’s gonna go 27 degrees clockwise with
the Genie Mini and that’s gonna give me my parallax. One thing that’s important
to understand about a parallax move is that when you’re doing, like, an interview and
you’re quite a ways away from the subject, as long as you’re about the same difference
on right and left your focus is gonna stay pretty close. ‘Cause you’re not changing
the focus distance enough to really affect it. But when you’re using a macro lens and
you’re getting in close your focus on a parallax move is gonna come in and out. It’s
gonna really move. So you have to use that to your advantage. You use it to move the
focus in to the subject matter and now it’s in focus at the very end. That’s a pretty
move. And it’s really nice to do with this 90mm Macro from Tamron because I can get in
really close. And I can do those kind of small moves on small u-- subject, uh, matter in
there and it looks really pretty. The reason you would use a linear move vs. a parallax
move is a linear move becomes a reveal. That is you slowly slide in and you reveal your
subject matter. So depending on the pacing of your piece and how you really want to introduce
your subject matter you can use a linear move. Saying, Well here we are in this world. We’re
not sure where we’re at. And, oh it’s this beautiful piece of jewelry. It’s a
, you know it becomes a great way to introduce. Also becomes a great way to keep your motion
going from right to left. You can go from a parallax move and you can cut to a linear
move. Uh, it just gives you those two together will allow you to kind of cut back and forth.
The parallax I think is beautiful because it focuses on one piece and lets the focus
kind of drift in and out. It’s very dreamy and I just feel like it -- it gives a--added
emphasis to the subject matter. And kind of emphasizes the subject matter. So they both
have a place. They both have a way that make them valuable and useful on set. You could
absolutely mix them together to kind of give you a sense of constant movement throughout
your piece. So there you have it. A wonderful glimpse
at the world of shooting food. Wonderful top back light and those nice slider moves. But
it’s just a glimpse. There’s so much more we can learn. This lighting setup will work
for video as well as stills Strobes or continuous light, doesn’t matter. It’s the same principles.
You can apply it each way. So get out there. Shoot some food. Understand a little more.
This is just a start. There are so many more things we can talk about. But get out there
and try it. Make it a part of your world. So keep those cameras rollin’ keep on clickin’.
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March is almost over but the giveaway is not done. Go to TheSlantedLens.com and win this
2-axis setup. It’s great equipment by Syrp. Get over there right now.
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