Newbie Camera Help

HKYStormFront

i would recommend finding a lens that is a macro lens no matter what camera you get. the T1i will do the job fine. the pro's use a lot of fancy lighting to strobe food while shooting the pictures you see on a menu at your local big chain restaurant. you can substitute using a lot of lighting like desk lamps and such. also, get a decent tripod (expect to spend 100-200 bucks for a good one, manfrotto brand if you can find one) and put that camera on the tripod and the food on a table that you've lit really well. use manual focus instead of relying on the autofocus and shoot at as low an ISO as you can get away with (if you are on tripod, ISO 50 or 100, whatever the lowest is) and shoot f/11 or higher for a large depth of field. when shooting macro your depth of field gets really small so shooting a higher f-stop will let you show more of the food and still get some nice background bokeh.

also, until you start taking these pictures, pay attention when you go to other restaurants and try to figure out how they shot the pictures and see if you can duplicate the look. also don't discount setting up a scene to put the food in. olive garden especially is good at this by putting the dishes on various backgrounds/tables instead of just showing them on a stark white background or a gingham tablecloth like the local restaurants will

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