Tips and Tools for Food Photography

Got your eyes on some sultry, delicious-looking amuse-bouche and mouth-watering plates of carefully prepared dinner? Get the gear you need for Instagram-ready shots.

Cameras for Juicy Details

Top-tier high resolution cameras will help you capture every delicious bite, but even lower end cameras will deliver when paired with the right lenses. We recommend staying away from fixed-lens, vlog-style cameras if you’re aim is to focus on shooting food photography. An interchangeable lens camera will provide greater flexibility and creative options.

Perfect Pairings

Best Pick for Beginners: Canon EOS R50 and a RF 50mm F1.8 Lens

Photo by cottonbro studio

Thankfully, to get started in food photography you don’t need break the bank. This two-piece combo is something you will be able to run with for a long time and can be yours for under $1500.00, taxes in. The 50mm allows you to blur out that background and focus on your subject. Eventually you might want to get yourself an affordable wider-angle lens, but the compression the 50mm lens has is great for products and food! The aperture of F1.8 allows you to blur the background to a pretty extreme degree so there are a ton of options for creativity.

Yes, having more resolution in your camera is nice, but fill the frame to how you want the end result to be, and you won't be worrying about cropping images or video after the fact. Spend less on the camera, spend some on the lens, spend a ton on lighting. In food photography lighting is everything. For the beginner, create your shot near a window and get yourself some photo editing apps like Lightroom. This is the bare minimum to get started but can take you very far in the food photography world.

Best Overall: Panasonic S1R Mkii with a Side Order of Lighting Gear

The Panasonic S1R Mkii is an excellent pick for food photographers or videographers because of the high resolution and 40FPS shooting. If you are looking to capture food falling from the sky or splashing into water, the 44MP full frame sensor gives you plenty of resolution and room if you need to crop in. Video shooters will capture all the detail when in the 8.1K mode. The camera does do Open Gate shooting mode as well, so you can shoot things once and deliver on multiple social media platforms. RAW video allows you to make curtail adjustments in post, so you can focus on shooting in the moment. SSD recording is an option on this model - a feature you want with any camera that shoots RAW, because the file sizes are large. The camera does have CF-Express Type B, a more affordable media format when compared to the Type A, but SSD drives are sometimes even more affordable, offering Terabytes rather than Megabytes worth of storage.

Food photography is all about set design and light. Using something like a Wescott Optical Spot Light Modifier allows you to throw light onto your set in a way that natural light rarely does. The tabs in the middle of the modifier can be pushed and pulled to create a spotlight or a sliver of light to highlight specific objects, which is such a unique look when taking photos or video. The gobos come in the box with this light modifier allow you to get other interesting patterns of light, like what you would get when a light shines through a window, a tree and more. These Gobos can be put into the modifier and give you so many cool patterns. We use this spotlight modifier in a number or product videos at Henry’s, such as this one.

Photo by Taryn Elliott

Camera Lenses for Food Photography

Explore your options with prime and macro lenses or wide-angle lenses.

Set the Scene

Having a variety of backdrops can be really helpful as well -- some food photographers will have all the colours of the rainbow and everything in-between. Different textures can also help switch things up and keep things fresh.

Savage backdrops will add the pop of colour but also keep a look out for broken pieces of countertop or wood that people give away for free. Some foods do not require a large surface. Having a few small pieces of countertop or wood just might make your food photography pop.

Speed light or LED?

The big benefit to having speedlights or a larger studio stobe is power. Sometimes you want everything in focus and the affordable LED lights don’t always allow you to maintain a clean ISO, while also using a very small aperture like F11. This is even more important if using a macro lens for food photography, which is a very popular tool for shooting products and food. A lot of food photographers are now using LED lights on set, but they are purchasing LEDs with a lot of power and unfortunately, you get what you pay for. These powerful LEDs sometimes cost about or over $1000.00. The Aputure 300D is a great example. Great light, a lot of power, will run ya just over $1000.00.

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Get the Gear: The Best Cameras, Lenses and Accessories

Feast your eyes on this selection of cameras, lenses and useful tools to help you make the most of your food photography whether you’re at home, in the studio, or on location at a restaurant.