Food Photography Lighting Tips
- High-quality
- Portable
- Versatile
- Durable
- Soft light
- Hard light
- Broad lighting
- Short lighting
- Backlighting
- Background control
- Getting Started in Food Photography: Beginner’s Gear Guide
- What to Look for in Food Photography Backdrops
- Food Photography Styling 101
Food photography lighting setups are similar to other photographic lighting configurations such as small product photography, tabletop photography, and still life photography.
In fact, whatever you end up getting for creative food photography lighting will probably become the backbone of your photography lighting gear for many types of photography, including some portrait photography.
Professional food photography lighting gear should meet these criteria:
In addition to the gear itself, you’ll want to become familiar with several small product and food photography lighting techniques such as:
Food Photography Lighting Gear
Let’s find some high-quality, versatile, durable, and professional food portable lighting gear first. You’ve already got your camera and lens choices, so now we’ll cover everything else.
A good tripod and some light stands are first up. For the tripod, you’ll want something that is sturdy enough to stay steady for long exposure techniques and also to not be too prone to getting knocked over as we work in what are often tight quarters.
Manfrotto makes excellent tripods such as the Manfrotto MT055XPRO3-3W which has heavy-duty, quick-adjust legs and comes with a secure three-way head that includes a quick-release system.
Two special features that make this a fine tripod for creative food photography are the center column can be used horizontally (90 degrees) for flat lay imaging and the Easy Link connector for adding a portable light.
Savage 9ft Drop Stand extends up to 9 feet and is the quickest light stand to set up, move, or collapse, making it perfect for food photography lighting. Add a boom for extending a small LED light or a softbox for overhead shots.
A light box for food photography can provide soft light as part of a multi-light configuration or as a single light. Aperture Nova P300c LED light panel provides a soft, color-correct light that can be further modified by adding the P300c Softbox attachment.
This is a continuous LED light that has infinite power adjustment, color temperature control from 2000 to 10,000K, and a CRI rating of 95 for high-quality, completely variable lighting.
For a battery-powered LED light kit, check out the Phottix Nuada R3 II Twin Kit complete with two lights, two light stands, a carrying bag, and remote control. This kit is also very affordable making it doubly attractive for food photography lighting. Optional power from Sony camcorder batteries adds to the portability and versatility.
For lighting up the food photography background, a lightweight, battery-powered LED light such as the Godox LEDP-260C will come in handy. You could also use it for adding fill light or a backlight to show steam effects.
As a durable, water-resistant, portable, and photo-realistic food photography backdrop, the Skyler Burt Collection of backdrops such as the Vesper or Black Feather food photography backdrops can be mixed and matched from Best Ever Backdrops.
Best Ever Backdrops makes a huge variety of amazing-looking food photography backdrops and props for use in your food photography lighting setup for capturing the best views of the items you’re imaging. Not only are their backdrops and props beautiful, they are also some of the most practical and durable backgrounds available for food photography or small product photography.
Learn More:
Food Photography Lighting Techniques
With our gear choices made, let’s think about some of the food photography lighting techniques we can use for capturing awesome images.
In order to clearly show all aspects of a dish such as for a recipe, soft lighting, such as from a softbox or two, is often desired. But using harder light in food photography lighting is also a good option, especially if we’re wanting to add some drama or interest to the items being photographed.
A tried and true method to get soft lighting without lots of detail obscuring shadows and contrast is to use two similar lights in a softbox or with umbrellas, and place them at a 45-degree angle above and to the side of the subject, one light on either side of the subject.
We can add a light to the backdrop for a little added separation or simply let the light fall off without a physical backdrop being used. This method of food photography lighting also works well for overhead shots such as a flat lay.
Hard Light Adds Drama
The fun comes when we step outside of the typical shadow-free food photography lighting technique described above. Just as with portrait and architectural photography, controlling shadow, highlights, and contrast with harder or point light sources adds interest, drama, and perhaps even some emotion.
The concepts are almost identical to the portrait lighting techniques we’ve described in detail in a series of several articles here on Photography Talk (check the Learn More links below for tutorials). Broad lighting and short lighting will likely be the harder light methods we use most often for changing up our food photography lighting.
As a basic reminder, broad lighting describes when our camera position is on the side which has the most light falling on it while short lighting has the camera position on the opposite side. Both techniques add contrast to a scene by controlling shadow and highlight.
A special technique can be used to show the steam rising up from off of a hot dish or cup, two methods actually. One technique uses backlighting to shine on the rising vapor so that it shows up. The exposure is hardly affected, just a controlled light from behind the steam.
Another way to show that steam vapor involves using a food photography backdrop in a dark shade and shining light from the front onto the steam. Adjusting the exposure so that the light hitting the vapor is captured against the dark, unlit background will show off the rising steam quite well.
There is a lot more to cover concerning food photography lighting and use of backdrops that we will continue to discuss, so be sure to come back to our discussion on food photography.