Eat your Photography with Boomf

boomf

If you’re tired of the same old impersonal snacks, then Boomf is the service for you.  For the low price of $20, Boomf will print 9 of your favorite Instagram photos on Marshmallows.  That’s right …. Marshmallows.  The next time you want to relive great family memories, don’t reach for the photo albums, pull out the Marshmallows!

Photography isn’t as permanent as it used to be with services like Snapchat, but this takes things to a whole ‘nutha level.  Forget about deleting photos, now you can eat photos.

Considering these are printed on food, I gotta say the demo’s look pretty good. But who cares, it’s a photo printed on a Marshmallow.  Nobody is going to call Boomf and complain about their blacks dropping out.

Boomf is located in the UK, but they do ship worldwide.  With Christmas around the corner, this could make the perfect gift for your favorite photographer.

I don’t know about you, but after checking out these photos, I never want to eat boring old Marshmallows again.

boomf2

 

 

Photoshop is on Sale: Buy It Now, Dummies!

Photoshop is on Sale: photoshop photographer program

Guess what I’m getting for Christmas?  That’s right, a brand spankin’ new version of Photoshop CC bundled with Lightroom 5.  Christmas came early this year when Adobe opened up the Photoshop Photography Program to everyone regardless of their previous purchasing history with Photoshop. (I was ineligible due to my older student and teacher edition)  In simple terms, if you have a credit card and a connection to the internet, you can get Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5, Bridge, 20GB of cloud storage, and a Behance Prosite for $10 a month.  Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy.

What’s the Catch

The catch is that it’s a one year subscription with an automatic renewal.  Of course, a large swath of the Photoshop user community broke out the old Cry Face when Adobe switched over to a subscription based model, but this is actually an amazing deal.  When I first heard about the switch, I was mad too, but then I remembered I’ve been getting ripped off by large corporations my whole life.  Compared to the cable company and my cell phone provider, a $10 a month subscription is like getting wrapped in a warm blanket fresh out of the dryer.

Just Do It

A lot of sites have broken down the numbers, so I’ll skip the math lesson, but this is a reasonable price for a great product.  Unlike Microsoft Word which is used at Gitmo to break terrorists when water-boarding is ineffective, Photoshop is an enormously capable program worth every penny.  For the price of a medium pizza, you get a superior photo imaging bundle plus an online portfolio site combined with 20GB of storage.

Happy Thoughts

I’m not a Pollyanna.  I realize Adobe is a big ol’ monopoly stretching its muscles.   Once you take the red pill, you’re in the Adobe subscription Matrix forever.  If so inclined, they can arbitrarily raise the price and if you stop paying, you’re up the creek.  Without a connection to big brother, your Photoshop files will be useless.

That being said, I’m ready to submit to my corporate Overlord.  For 10 bucks a month, I get immediate access to all the latest features of programs I use every single day.  Adobe isn’t reversing course and the price is never going to get better than this, so I’m all in …… and you should be too.

Nikon Df : What’s with all the Cry Face?

Nikon Df Review by David Mayerhofer of I bake he shoots

The Nikon faithful worked themselves into a fit this week with the introduction of the retro wunderkind: the Nikon Df.  After weeks of raised expectations stoked by a series of ingenious teaser videos, the Df landed in the hands of reviewers with an enormous thud.  The gear fanatics, who inhabit the camera blogosphere, envisioned such an insanely great photographic tool that nothing short of the Second Coming would’ve satisfied critics.  When Nikon finally pulled the veil off a beautifully crafted camera with a bounty of manual metal dials that flashed back to the film era, the response was one of vitriol and disappointment.

What’s the big deal?

The Nikon Df is a new digital camera that looks like a film camera from the 70’s.  It has a bunch of metal control wheels that appeal to old farts who still lament the golden age of film. For every photographer who used to blame the photo lab for their lousy technique, this is the Holy Grail of cameras.

Why all the Cry Face?

The problem is that the specs don’t match the price.  The Df is an expensive mishmash from the Nikon parts bin.  It may have the exceptional pro D4 sensor, but with the rent-a-center autofocus from the prosumer D610 and a $3,000 price tag, the Nikon loyalists are crying foul.  Nikon is betting the farm that every guy with a closet full of golf pants is going to buy this camera, but pre-orders are already off the pace of last year’s D800.

Personal Note on the Nikon Df

From a distance, I love this camera (I guess I’m one of those old farts).  I grew up shooting with an all manual Pentax K-1000 so this camera gets me on a very emotional level.  It may be missing a few things like video and a backup SD card, but these features aren’t a big deal if the camera feels right in the hand.  At the end of the day, all that matters are the images.  If the Df gets it done, Nikon will get my money.

Photo credit: Nikon

4 Not-So-Easy Ways to Improve Your Food Photography

Bruschetta for food photography

Do you make beautiful food, but take ugly photos?  Gorgeous food photography doesn’t require a pro studio with expensive equipment, but it does demand good technique.  With a little know-how, you can dramatically improve the quality of your images.

1. Use a Tripod

The tripod isn’t your enemy.  I know you love to walk around the table and take pictures of food from a million angles, but you need to use a tripod.  When shooting food, you’re not taking pictures, you’re making pictures.  With a tripod, you can move the lights and experiment with the composition while keeping the same frame.  Move the food, not the camera.

From a technical standpoint, using a tripod gives you some big advantages

  • Your food photos are going to be tack sharp
  • You can use a low ISO for maximum tonal quality
  • You can lower the shutter speed, stop down the aperture, and create a deep depth of field

Don’t be that guy who has an awesome food blog, gets a book deal, and then gives his publisher a bunch of lousy handheld photos.

2. Put Everything on Manual

When you use AUTO, you’re letting Nikon and Canon make the decisions for you.  Sure, Canikon might get lucky and give you a few decent exposures, but at the end of the day, don’t you want to be the one in control of your art? This is what MANUAL can do for you.

ISO – Seriously, put this as low as possible.  If you’re on a tripod, you can do this.  A higher ISO increases noise and lowers dynamic range.  If you want your images to look like last year’s Christmas cards from the 99 cent store, push up the ISO.  It may look good on the back of your screen, but it will look like junk if you print it.

Focus – Selective focus can be a really cool thing in food photography.  Increase the size of your aperture to create a very shallow in-focus area and magic can happen.

Shutter – This isn’t a big deal in food photography.  If you’re too cool for school and decide to skip the tripod, make sure you’re shutter speed is at least 1/125 to avoid camera shake.

Aperture –  This is where you can get really creative.  To throw the background out of focus, open up the aperture (f2.8 is wide open on many lenses) and decrease the depth of field (this is the area that is in focus).  To increase the depth of field, stop down the aperture (f22 is closed all the way down on many lenses).  Commercial food photographers typically favor deep focus, but this is an aesthetic choice.

3. Change Your Camera Position

If you want a super lame food photo, take a picture from the sitting position.  I like to go low because I appreciate the dramatic impact of putting food in the hero position, but going overhead works too.  Here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

  • When shooting low, think about composition and try to create a foreground and background around the subject. The elements around the subject (silverware, napkins, cups etc) tell the story and give the image depth.
  • When shooting from above, think about design and try to frame the subject with various elements.
4. Fix the White Balance

The biggest problem with food photos on the web is the color blue.  Most food blogs are photographed with indirect window light and this light is blue.  The AUTO WHITE BALANCE should neutralize this, but it usually doesn’t.  To fix this:

  • Manually place the white balance on “shade”
  • Do a custom white balance off a piece of white paper
  • Do a custom white balance off an 18% grey card
  • If you want to go “super pro” and impress your friends, go get a Colorchecker Passport.

Blue isn’t all bad and can be used creatively, but you certainly don’t want it to be the dominate tone throughout your photography.

Just a bit more

Here is a little more on the subject if you don’t understand the concept of white balance.

The color temperature of light isn’t uniform.  Take for expample:

  • Morning light is cool.
  • Afternoon light is warm.
  • Tungsten light is orange.  
  • Florescent light is green

The human eye adjusts and adapts to these colors, but cameras aren’t as efficient.  Digital cameras try their best to neutralize these color casts and create a true white with AUTO WHITE BALANCE, but most of the time, they miss the mark.

Once you accept the fact that the colors your camera produces are wrong, you can fix the problem by manually setting the Kelvin temperature or creatively dial in new colors based on your subject.

Food Photography wrap-up

I was going to call this “4 Easy Ways To Improve Your Food Photography,” but good technique isn’t always easy.  One of the great things about shooting food is the amazing challenges it presents. Anyone can put the camera on AUTO and get lucky once in awhile, but if you dig in and learn the science behind the photography, you can shoot like a pro.

 

Photo Credit: Photographed as a team with chef and photographer Roger Lai