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Food Photography Gear

This is just a small selection of the crucial gear that I use on a regular basis I'll explain why I use what I use. This is kind of just a quick shot of you know kind of one of our load outs that we do. I have a lot of different pieces of specialized gear but you do not have to start out. I mean once you get working and once you really start to get known on a national level gear just kinda comes and it doesn't become expensive anymore because your clients are paying you to do a job to do it right and they need you you know you need to invest in gear that works for you. And the most important thing is when you first starting out you wanna rent lenses, you wanna try everything out you wanna rent camera buddies, which camera buddy do I like? And get to know a system really well. And then you'll start chipping away at stuff you'll start saying "I never use that lens" and then get rid of it "I never use that." So you wanna it's okay to collect gear especially rent it and try it. Especially ...

when you're doing test shoots I wanna try this lens it's okay to make a mistake now and I don't know this lens but I use Nikon and occasionally we'll rent a medium format for jobs but only when they require the resolution that a medium format offers. I love medium format. I have no interest really in owning it, as of yet that could change. But you know there's a new hosi ball that just came out that looks fantastic we use a phase. There is hydra megapixel one that came out that one of our colleagues has that just rent. And it's not cheap to rent either it's about a 1000 bucks a day or some yeah it's a lot. But I only need the tool to get the job done I was obsessed about gear for eight years for a long time before I started really getting into photography. And now I've kind of lost the you know I love what I have and I love it a lot and I wouldn't trade it and I'll kinda go through where I ended up and how I got there. Now, first there's two different ways I shoot. I mean I'll shoot natural light but very rarely. I'll shoot either using LEDs or I'll shoot using strobes. LED is cool, it's doesn't get hot. It's portable, I've got one stuck to the roof of that oven and I just bend it so it forms the shape of the roof of the oven. And it's just a really convenient and easy way to pack a lot of light into a small package. So this is kind of like my digital tech bag that I have so when I'm on my own I'm traveling I can have all the cords. This cord doesn't work. It's still in there 'cause I haven't gotten rid of it yet but I have a microphones, I have for audio capture I do motion as well and I have a background in sound design and sound capture. I love that part of it, I'm not a pro though so it depends what the project is. So we have a we have audio, an audio workstation audio interface and I do a lot of stuff with the motion side of things. But we have just a variety of carrying you'll notice when you start to get a lot of gear you get a lot of bags. I have bags, I have a storage unit full of empty bags and I feel weird getting rid of them I should just craigslist them. So if anybody wants a bag just look on you know I'll have them on my blog and I'll be selling but it's full of empty bags 'cause I've moved, I've progressed with my gear and sort of pared it down. That's what happens as you get excited about gear you finally reach a level of some success and you're getting a lot of gear and then you sort of pair it down because you're getting older and my back hurts all the time now and I can't lift it and I make Jack do it sometimes. But so I'll kinda go through piece by piece what we're looking at here, I'm gonna start off with lenses. This is not a pro shot, there's a lot of dust you see? I should take better care of my lenses but I use the Nikon D800E, it doesn't have the high pass filter, whatever it is that kinda adds a little blur. The new one's great, I really recommend the it's the current model and it just adds it's the perfect amount of resolution Canon version too I'm not one or the other, but this is just what I'm used to. But you do want enough resolution to be able to provide the client with a file size that will work for them and 36 to 40 megapixels is a good sweet spot. This can do billboards, no problem although I do prefer medium format. What will happen is we shot a billboard for a Canadian milk company, and it was absolutely massive but the viewing distance is four feet! It was on a subway and it stretched the entire length of this wall and there was no room for air so we stitched four photos together, side by side, each 80 megapixels and we had to get new computers just to handle the files. The computer smoking, it was a mess it took a long time. So you just have to have the tool to get the job done. This gets everything done I need to get done and it has a really good dynamic range and I'm never in a really contrasting situation anyways. So this is a great camera body. Now attached to that, this is, I really liked this lens it's a 180 millimeter to eight, and we're gonna be using this today. I haven't used this in two years but it's a really cool focal length. I love exaggerated focal lengths, I've started to use the 24 millimeter more and just doing really intense closeups to things that are really dramatic and I love going I love compressing the daylights out of scenes. Anything that's extreme one way or the other high key, low key, compressed, wide angle, anywhere in the middle, I kinda don't leave very often and that's just my artistic choice but there's a lot of work to be had in that middle range too. So we find ourselves not working as much with you know, clients and sort of the natural foods business or the, 'cause it just doesn't translate that well, but. Okay, so this is a 180, it's an older lens and it's a bit like a tank, it's just rock solid. I wish they made lenses like this still. I have a 60 millimeter macro for shots where you have to get super close, which is often any detail shots. So, and I like getting close up. I don't like the 100 millimeter macro 'cause it does compress the scene and I think your depth of field is even a little bit shallower, which is always an issue. So with macro, with food, you're not gonna get in the way of your own light. You can get super close, so this is if I can get a 40 of macro would I? So I don't mind that at all, but these are what I use. This pretty much stays. I have two camera bodies, which is really important I don't typically tend to tell people to invest in camera bodies first, but you do. If you're gonna be working pro you have to have two bodies, there's no way around it. If one goes down, you're stuck even three. I mean, if one goes down, we're using two cameras, a lot where we're doing packaging shoots and I have one over the top 'cause we're doing two different kinds of shots with the same product and I have one coming in at a three quarter and one overhead at the same time. So we're gonna switch 'em out, be efficient. But it's good to have two camera bodies and if I were to tell people to get one lens, there's no question and it's not on the table, but it would be a, it would be a nifty 50. It'd be one of the old 50 millimeter G Nikon, you know a $100 lenses, and I can get a couple of them. They're awesome! I mean, they have a really good circle on 'em so there's this good edge to edge sharpness and it's clean. If I were to go beyond that, it's really a tie between the 45 tilt shift and there's a Canon version of these two. A 45 tilt-shift and a 90 tilt-shift or an 85 in this instance. Tilt-shifts are, I know a lot of food photographers who love tilt-shifts, and then they start using 'em and then they kinda quit using them. 'Cause they don't use the tilt or the you know, they're kind of like wall especially if you shoot shallowed up the field it's good to have the control but it is a manual lens there's no auto on this lens at all. So what we have when I shoot stuff that's overhead I've got the 45 on the camera right now. And what I've done is instead of having a camera stand kind of rolled up and then an arm going out and there tends to be a lot of wiggle you can get some shaky images on a camera stand. They're expensive too. So I've kinda gotten away from camera I love a good photo stand and it's good for certain things but you know they're six grand a piece and so I've, I really love this carbon fiber tripod and it goes up really high. This is a git so I don't even know the model GT three, five, four, two Xls (laughs). And I'll put that on the I don't, I think it's in the gear page I'm not sure. But I can put this directly down and right now this lens is pointed directly down on the edge of the scene here which you'll be able to see a little bit clear in a minute. So what I've done is so that I don't have any kind of tilt in my image but I can capture the center of this I don't have to have the tripod right over the set so nobody can get to it. I just shift the lens forward and then it starts to see right down the middle of the set so you're not in the way of your own set I could even back this up more. So I use the shift and then it starts to get overhead over something without actually being over it and getting in the way of my own set. So I use the tilt, a lens will actually tilt this way, this way and that way and it'll just be that when your camera's like this I can take a picture of this camera just by shifting up like this and it'll double it and it'll be right over the camera. When I'm actually looking to make creative decisions about where to put the plane of focus you just unlock it and then you'll be able to tilt the lens forward and that'll allow you to come in at a three quarter angle and just get the top of the lens perfectly sharp front to back. Or you can back it off and go the other way and get a razor-thin depth the field like there's nothing it depends on your f-stop obviously. But I can get just it really backs off your focal point so it's like a razor. So it just depends and more importantly I find this even more useful you can come in at an angle and if you have like three cups of coffee or three donuts or something stand up and you want the plane of focus to kinda edge along those two you can actually go to the side and then tilt it inward and it'll just rake across that. Or you can actually go the other way and just get that center item completely in focus everything else goes completely blurry. So this is a really good creative tool I shoot a really deep depth of field like f/16, f/ which is crazy for food. Nobody does that rarely but I love f/22 on these lenses I don't know why it just gets everything in perfect focus and I don't see a lot of diffraction to be honest so it works. Two Pocket Wizards I don't use these for LED lights obviously just the strobes you gotta have them. I like to have three because one will invariably go down or something. Batteries will leak into 'em but I have two I really like the Plus X ones that there's no nonsense they don't have a lot of I just want this to trigger it, flash I don't really care you know if it has all the settings so this is just a trigger. You will get familiar with Pocket Wizards you know the okay. Gotta have a couple of those. The X-Rite ColorChecker is really good because it just gives you a quick white balance you've seen these all over. They're still really a good standard they give you a good color balance and they're really good. They have skin tones, they have different tones of white for adjustments and then a basic white cord right here which is handy and it's small. This is really helpful. You see a lot of cameras especially medium formats that have kind of a bellow system and then they have a lens hood. And the bellow system allows you to do what these tilt-shift lens does do but with more exaggeration. You can do almost anything with the bellow system. You can bend down these kind of have limitations. If you shift a 24 millimeter all the way you'll get sort of a dark edge on the left side of the frame. So these aren't perfect but they're extremely well-designed. This hood allows filters especially when I'm doing splash work. This keeps image this keeps any light from penetrating the inside of this is a LEE Hood Filter. And you just get these really nice LEE filters that come you can get polarizers, you can get circular or linear. I actually use a polarizer in here a lot for beverage work. I cross-polarized a lot where I have a polarizing gel on the actual light. In fact I usually put one I'll show you in a minute this data light behind me. But it allows you to turn the polarizer and then turn the light with the polarizing gel on it and any reflection caused by the actual light vanishes completely. So you just get this glow, it's fantastic. So I typically keep a polarizer on here for food to control reflections to protect the lens mostly but when we're doing splash work I'll just put a UV filter on here like a perfectly clear they're not cheap 'cause they're really clear and they're not gonna affect your image. I think this one's a resin one but the it keeps splashes from getting on your expensive gear, which is crucial and we'll see that tomorrow I hope I won't destroy my camera. It's always an issue 'cause we were filming we were shooting splashes and crashes with medium format and I love getting up close to splashes I love drama and wide angles and I'm not afraid to get it right up Jesus! (laugh) I'm not afraid to get it right up in there and actually you know, get my gear wet it's totally fine. As long as it's protected properly and this helps it 'cause you can see all the gunk that's in there from prior so I'm like wiping out heavy cream out there it takes forever, it's gross. So as far as rigging stuff goes this is here I just have this for shooting in restaurants. When you're needing me mobile I don't use it very often we're gonna go over this in the class tomorrow as far as shooting and capturing action. This has a really this is one of the options you can get this reasonable that captures it has a flash duration of I've read I don't know if this is true but like one 38000th of a second if used properly on low settings. It has no power when you do that but if you're right here and you're doing like macro stuff it's awesome. And it creates this really nice black background but you have to be close. It doesn't have tons of power when you're doing this so. These are French Flag adapters. I actually put these you can put these into magnetic bases and you can hold herbs above cocktails. I use this thing all the time of food photography. I would this is just these are just Manfrotto Flex Arms I believe or Matthews it's on the gear list and if it's not all updated but this allows kind of herbs to be placed over cocktails or spoons to be held. Not necessarily at this clamp but maybe with one of these. But these French Flag adapters, lemme grab this real quick. These I use constantly because when you see a highlight we're gonna go over the images later and there will invariably be one or two that have you know really intense highlights that are overblown. And you might be tempted to knock down your exposure in the process to capture the highlights properly. What you really need to do is grab yourself a few of these you do not need all of these. But these are just fingers and dots and scrims and you can get 'em they're made by Matthews and you can actually get them in sets but they're expensive in sets. So, I would recommend really getting these completely block out the light and they fit right inside here. So this is a Matthews French Flag adapter and they just fit right in there. And so these, you can clamp onto the side of a set and then bend the arm and get you know really cut light in a very specific area. This I use all the time, too. This is what happen when you're doing backloading especially when you have highlights are out of control rather than kinda knock down your exposure and just have an underexposed image because of those highlights you just select out you can either use this or this. They act in slightly different ways but just to cut a little bit of the light in that specific area. So you're not underexposing, you're troubleshooting piece by piece where the highlights fall where you want more to come in you can actually use this as many they can actually kick light into stuff too if you want. They're slightly opaque. So, I have a variety of these. They come in handy all the time especially this one, this one's the troubleshooter right there. This one gets rid of these little areas that you're just like oh! There's just no explanation for why that's there and instead of kinda waving your hand around like a crazy person trying to find out where it's coming from this really gets rid of those little trouble spots. So those can be found online. But I use a lot of gear that's not just obvious camera gear. I mean there's a lot of scrims, a lot of gobos a lot of things that sort of are very subtle in their effect this being one of them. But if you get just a few of those like a little dot, a few scrims, you can even make them out of coat hangers and nylon or you can even glue, kinda diffusion material Doko hangar you have the same thing there's really no difference. They're not gonna fit perfectly in here and I don't like kind of messing with that stuff when I'm on set but you can clamp this. This table has a lip under it so you can really use the superclamp but you just clamp it to here and then you have a flag on set that can kind of just bend down. And this one's really meant to handle a heavy one but to have a diffusion piece of diffusion going across it'll cut those back highlights. What else? There's plenty of gear, this is a polarizing gel. This is the gel that I kinda put in front of I used to get this so you can get us by the sheet or in a I always recommend getting a mounted because when you tape it to a beauty dish you tape it to anything else it's gonna tear it's expensive, these are a lot they're but I don't even know. They're not outrageous but there a lot. So if you having a frame you can just clip it you know, you can use C-47s which are like just close pins that are inverted or a clamps or anything just or I usually put it on its own stand and just put it in front of the light that I wanna block. So I just twist, I put it in front of the light and then I twist the polarizer on my camera or vice versa if by twisting I'm affecting the scene adversely. You just figure out that sweet spot where they both collide and then eliminate the direct reflections of the light. It doesn't affect the actual light as much just the direct reflection of the actual head. These I are really recommend this is a great thing to get when you first start out you have to have one of this. I don't use it as much now because there's things on set that I can do everything needs to be locked down for me I don't just hold it and then say go because every shot has to match the next shot perfectly. But when you're in your home you're not under that kinda pressure. So these, the ones that have like the silver and gold kind of alternating are perfect for food because it's not this over glowing gold you know over really rich reflection and it's not gold and silver either. It's kind of in the middle and it's really good it's really kind of delicious looking light. What else? Oh! This is overkill, this is a big time overkill (laughs). I don't even know what this is called. This is a, it's a Manfrotto plate it's on the list but this actually allows you to you put this in a C stand in one of the clips and if you're really like you know if you're retentive about this you can position this. I usually just put this actually into the knuckle of a C-stand kind of like this. When you do put kind of backdrops or anything in there you wanna go in this middle area not in the actual grip. I used to do that when I was starting out but you just put it in between the knuckle and the base there and you're good to go with kind of like a little stationary piece of reflective material. But if you really wanna go and you want adjustment ability and have it really be easy you just tape this to the back of a preferably larger piece of foam core this is just overkill too. But you can have on a C-stand that you can move it a little bit, you can make these minor adjustments. Not something that I would go out and get right now but it's something to think about that's out there. It's important to kind of study grip material just how grips work even talk to a grip in the industry who works in film to see how they work 'cause it's a really revealing a really interesting. So these are mirrors. This is a actually a mirror that's been rubbed I rubbed it with, I think it's bestine and then a Doline spray on top of that I'm not sure if that's exactly how it went but it dulls the mirror so it's not this intense sorry if I totally disgust somebody. But it allows you to kind of put it on set and tilt it and have a lot of control over where certain highlights are. When you, you can use these all day they will show up in reflective material and they're impossible to get in Photoshop it's really tough. So, I actually got I can't show you on set right now but I can actually show you on my presentation here. This is called a DataLight. I love this thing there's a photographer in Boston who uses this. And it's meant for cinema and so you can have these little projection cartridges you know, when you see kind of the 1980 style interviews where they've like blasted like a window pane on the wall and I mean it's not it's still done but it's kind of like a way to project shapes on the walls really sharply. This is awesome for food and it's two grand and it's not something you wanna go out and get right now. But this is my favorite 'cause it acts as a mirror. I can shape the light so the edges are perfectly sharp and they cover just the wine label of a bottle of wine I turn up just a little bit. So it has this little glow about it and there's no reflection that occurs typically from the DataLight. I'll tape like polarizing gel on the front of it but it's just a magnificent piece and it's LED, it's cool it doesn't they do make a different color temperature once and some hot lights versions. But I like everything to be kind of 5,600 Kelvin and LED when I'm working in kind of a natural light setting. So that's one of my favorite pieces of gear for sure. And this is kind of everything when it's all coming together I've got you know my camera with the bellow system. I love getting close in to things so that there's a dramatic nature to it. I don't like being backed off in the 80 millimeter range as much as much anymore. But having that mirror really helps especially food where you're not worried about reflections and we use do you guys know what cinefoil is? You guys are pretty familiar with that I use that all the time too. It's just foil that's made for this, for the cinema that you can shape and just it's basically foil that's like matte black and you can put it pretty much anywhere. I've got a little bit right here but we'll go into this gear as we're actually shooting the actual stuff they use for styling but this stuff I've used to line the inside of an oven to make it look more black to protect stuff from flame. I actually use this and I'll actually crumple it up and I'll do a line of this and then I'll brush it with rubber cement and light it, so that I'm not actually harming the surface that I'm whining cause rubber cement burns really fast and then dies out. So if you need like an oven flame in your house and you don't wanna catch the house on fire just kind of put some bricks like this and then brush a little rubber cement behind it and then light it on fire and it'll go up in flames and it'll die out really quick. And if you have a shallow that the field you can create a really convincing and like woodfired oven scene in a hurry. But this has multiple uses as you use it more and more you'll find a lot of different uses for it but we'll go over those you know when we're shooting. So, I think that's about it and this is just my obnoxious quote for today I am Steve Hansen, marginal social influencer "gear is everything, until It's not." You'll be really obsessed with gear if you're not already and I can be when something new comes out I'll really take a look at it and use it and rent it. I enjoy that process of understanding my gear really well because in the end, as sad as it may seem that kinda goes away like your desire for the gear just kinda, you want less. So you start out acquiring a lot of gear which is good it's a really good process to learn it and know what works and doesn't work that's how you form your style. But there's photographers who use just one lens especially fine art photographers who are just stuck on one lens because that's part of their style. Every little thing you acquire affects your style how I use this diffusion material affects my style. How I, so it all works together. But as you I do recommend that renting is the best way to go for sure just so you can get a handle on what's out there and to not be afraid to experiment and try stuff because that's kind of where things are forged.