Photography Tips for Gastronome Articles Bruce Liebert, Bailli Provincial, Hawaii/Pacific Islands October 22, 2015

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Photography Tips for Gastronome Articles Bruce Liebert, Bailli Provincial, Hawaii/Pacific Islands October 22, 2015"

Jonathan Nash
6 years ago
Views:

1 Photography Tips for Gastronome Articles Bruce Liebert, Bailli Provincial, Hawaii/Pacific Islands October 22, 2015 Background I have been assisting with Gastronome articles since the 1990 s, primarily as a photographer and technical consultant to various Chargé(e) de Presses. Chargée de Presse des Etats-Unis Michelle Metter asked me to put together some tips that may be helpful to those with less experience or technical background; this document is a start and will evolve over time. This document is organized by timeline from taking photographs to the eventual submission to Gastronome. My experience is almost entirely that of a Macintosh user, with little familiarity with equivalent Window s products. Cameras The evolution of the digital camera since the 1990 s has been truly remarkable both in terms of resolution as well as light-gathering ability of the camera sensor. Today it is easy to find relatively inexpensive cameras capable of resolutions more than 10 million pixels (MPx) albeit with tradeoffs in response time after the shutter is pressed and flash illumination. I ll discuss three general camera types: SLRs, point-and-shoot pocket cameras, and phone cameras. Any SLR (single lens reflex) camera, with an external flash, is completely acceptable for Gastronome purposes, including large group and food shots. The less-capable pocket cameras have more than sufficient resolution (several Mpx), but typically lack the capability to properly illuminate large groups indoors. However, they do make fine cameras for food shots when used with the close-up setting and the built-in flash. Phone cameras, while becoming increasingly capable, do not have the ability at this time to properly illuminate groups (or even food) and the resulting photos are strongly discouraged for Gastronome submission. In general, SLRs have larger sensors that can record in low-light situations, which is typical for indoor Chaîne events. Their sensors may have the same MPx resolution as the smaller sensor on pocket cameras, but their pixel size will be greater, which results in greater light-gathering capabilities. In addition, SLRs have very short lag times allowing for multiple photos in quick succession. They also generally have a raw setting, which will be discussed below. Cameras store their images on removable media, such as CompactFlash or smaller digital cards. These cards have become sufficiently inexpensive that cameras should have at least an 8 GB card, which will enable enough images to be stored at the highest camera resolution for more than one event. The standard setting will be jpeg (or jpg), which is an efficient, but lossy, digital storage format for pictures. The jpeg image is typically compressed in the camera by a factor of ten or more, with some inevitable loss of fidelity, even at the highest-quality jpeg setting. The preferred setting, if your camera supports it, is the so-called raw setting, which results in a stored image directly from the sensor without compression or artifacts.

2 Each camera manufacturer has their own proprietary raw format (Canon is.cr2, Nikon is.nef, etc.). The principal advantage of raw images is their ability to be able to be corrected for white balance (such as taken in artificial light) by the Gastronome staff. Disadvantages include the inability to be viewed using basic image software and larger file sizes, typically 15 MB or more per picture (even with a small 8 GB card, several hundred raw photos can be recorded). Some cameras have the ability to record both raw and jpeg photos simultaneously. Your image processing software, if it has the ability to display the raw image, is capable of saving it as jpeg, which can be viewed by any program. Use the camera lens zoom to fill the frame with the subject, but never use digital zoom. Some cameras can be zoomed past their lens limit and enter a fake-zoom mode where the resolution is decreased to increase the pixel size resulting in an apparent increased zoom range. Ensure your digital zoom is disabled. I recommend using autofocus, unless you are comfortable manually refocusing each shot. Ensure that the camera s focus point is on the subject, and not something several feet in back. Finally, take several photos of each subject; invariably someone in the group will be looking away or have their eyes closed. Lighting Without a doubt, proper lighting is extremely important in ensuring an acceptable photo is obtained. This is the reason phone cameras are strongly discouraged. Although there are pocket camera that have decent flashes, group shots more than ten feet away may not be properly illuminated. The built in flash in some SLRs are better, but an external flash is really needed to ensure well-lit group shots. In some cases, the lens of a SLR may block the flash in closeups, which is why I prefer to use a pocket camera for food shots. Even with a pocket camera, however, it may be necessary to slightly zoom in to ensure the food shot is illuminated uniformly. Transferring to Computer In order to submit your photos to Gastronome, you need to get them off the storage card and on to a computer. I assume that you know your options: connect via USB, remove the card and plug in to an external card reader, or use a computer with a built-in card reader (some cameras have the ability to wirelessly transfer photos). Most of you will undoubtedly use some photo processing software to organize photos, select the best of each subject, and delete the rest. You can, in most cases, view the photos (even raw) using only the software that comes with the operating system and store the images in a labeled folder.

Editing Although you are welcome to edit, crop, and adjust photos as you see fit for a photo album on a website, do not edit photos you send to Gastronome in any way!

3 Editing Although you are welcome to edit, crop, and adjust photos as you see fit for a photo album on a website, do not edit photos you send to Gastronome in any way! If the editors choose to use a photo, they will crop out the Exit sign, an unintended person in the background, and the like. Do not adjust exposure, color balance, or retouch these photos. If your camera has recorded raw images, save a copy of each photo as a jpeg to make life easier for the editors, and save both. Be sure you number each photo corresponding to the photo caption in the accompanying article, such as 1.NEF, 2.NEF, 1.jpg, 2.jpg, etc. Transferring to Gastronome OK, you are almost done. Now how to get the article and photos to your Regional Chargé(e) de Presse (RCdP) for review and transmittal to the appropriate Gastronome staff? is tempting, but not advisable since you need to send full-resolution photos. You can put everything on a CD, assuming your computer still has such a device available, and mail it. Alternatively, I recommend using Dropbox ( which is a free service that can be used to send very large files without overwhelming an inbox. If your photographer does not have a Dropbox account, you can add a New Folder in your account: and then Share it: Enter the addresses of those you wish to be able to upload files: The recipients will receive an alerting them to upload files to this folder.

4 You should assemble all the files (the article and the photos) into one folder and then compress that folder using standard software to create a single zipped file (.zip). This has the advantage of reducing the file size and keeping all the files together. The receiver merely clicks on the zipped file and it will restore the original files. The article can be edited, saved with the photos, recompressed, and sent up the chain. For Mac OS and Windows, creating a.zip file is readily accomplished, as shown below. In this example, the article and photos for the Young Chefs competition is in the Young Chefs folder. This has another folder labeled Photos and the article in Word format (.docx). In the Photos folder are two folders, one containing the raw photos and another containing the same photos as.jpg images (optional, but recommended). Of course, if you only shoot jpeg, you will only have one photos folder with numbered.jpg photos. In order to create a single zipped file of all the individual files, in Mac OSX, one merely selects the Young Chefs folder, goes to File and selects Compress Young Chefs, as shown below*. Another file will be created at the same location as the Young Chefs folder, but labeled YoungChefs.zip. That s the only file you want to send on via Dropbox using the address of your RCdP. He/she will get a notice that there is a file waiting to be downloaded.

5 *(for Windows, right-click on the folder, Send to, Compressed (zipped) folder)

Digital Cameras. Consumer and Prosumer

Digital Cameras. Consumer and Prosumer Digital Cameras Overview While silver-halide film has been the dominant photographic process for the past 150 years, the use and role of technology is fast-becoming a standard for the making of photographs.