Plate To Pixel Review and Giveaway

Plate to Pixel: Digital Food Photography & Styling

Digital photography is an amazingly easy and amazingly difficult world to enter. Just about anyone can pickup a digital camera and walk away with a photo. But there is a world of difference in getting “a” photo and getting “the” photo.

After taking 3 semesters of photography in high school and having my photography teacher declare I had the best portfolio she had seen in the last 10+ years I was feeling pretty confident about my ability to capture a good image. I could shoot well, had a steady hand and was really getting quite good at developing my own film in the dark room (this was then mind you, I’d need a serious refresher course at this point). Or so I thought.

What I didn’t realize is that my fathers wonderful film camera had a super simple light meter that I had become entirely dependent on. Take away my crutch and shove me into the dark unknown of digital photography and I’ve been flailing around ever since.

2 years ago I finally took the plunge and bought a $400 Nikon d70 off eBay with all my birthday and saved money. I almost died when the lens came out of the bag with a big ole crack in it and couldn’t believe it when it miraculously didn’t show one bit in the photos.

Since then I have fought with that camera. Fought with it not because it is a bad camera, but because I have refused to take the time to sit down and study how to shoot it. It’s funny when things come easy at first how you can be so bitter and unwilling to invest more and more time into relearning a new way.

So this year when I decided to restart up the blog I also decided it was time for me and this little Nikon to learn a new dance. I have followed Helene’s blog for several years ago, and up until 4 minutes ago I could have sworn to you that it was because of this recipe that I came upon her blog. But as you can clearly see this is not her blog, although she does a beautiful rendition of this same recipe here. So now I clearly have no idea!

Alas, her blog is lovely. The photos are dreamy and clean, her tone is so relaxing and such a nice change of pace from many of the blogs I read. When I need that deep breathe of calmness and beauty I often find myself turning to Tartelette. So you can imagine my delight when I saw that she had put out a food photography book! It was just the thing I needed to get me going again. With my own copy purchased here and a freebie secured for one for you lovely folks lets jump on in!

Walking Out of The Auto Setting

The next couple of weeks I’ll be sharing things I am learning as I walk out of my Auto setting addiction….I hope you enjoy following along with us.

First things first, which one of the dozens of settings on the top of my Nikon am I actually supposed to use? There are so many its overwhelming.

But Helene makes it seems like a piece of cake,

“In food photography, the Shutter Priority setting on your camera is not commonly used. Manual or Aperture Priority are used more often, unless the image is intended to capture motion, like wine being poured in a glass, milk splashes, syrup pouring onto a stack of pancakes, and so forth.”

A=Aperture Priority (You adjust the f/stop and the camera adjusts the shutter speed)

S=Shutter Priority (You adjust the shutter speed and the camera adjusts the f/stop)

M=Manual (You adjust the f/stop and the shutter speed)

This is the basic order from what I can gather which she recommends you learn to shoot in for food photography. Okay this I can handle!

With that in mind lets dig into the first one.

Aperture Priority: You adjust the aperture (or f/stop) and the camera adjusts the shutter speed.

“Aperture refers to the size of the opening of your lens, and it determines the amount of light that gets to your camera sensor (or film if you’re not using a digital camera). Aperture affects the exposure and depth of field in your image.

Think about aperture in terms of your eyes. Your iris controls the diameter and size size of your pupils as well as the amount of light that reaches them. When there is little light available, your pupils expand to create a larger opening and gather more light. When there is a lot of light, your pupils constrict and allow in less light. ”

And

“Every full f/stop doubles or halves the amount of light that hits your sensor. So, you ask, what does that mean?

Well the higher your f/stop number, the smaller your aperture and the less light that comes in. The lower the f/stop number, the larger the aperture, which leads to more light coming in. This is ideal in low-light situations, but be aware that a wide/large aperture creates a very small area of actual focus. And a very narrow focal point is unlikely to produce the shot you are envisioning. It might be as tiny as an almond on top of your crumble! Obviously, this dramatically restricts visibility in your photograph and undermines your ability to communicate information about a dish.”

Whew.

Here’s my cheat sheet for today:

Feel free to grab the cheat sheets as we go along and print them off if you like. I think I will be making mine into little laminated tags that I can have on a keychain for referencing.

Giveaway

 In light of the low amount of response we have had to the Pinterest Challenge I have decided to switch this review to a straight Giveaway.

How To Enter:

Help us raise our Facebook “likes”!

Share this giveaway with your friends by clicking the Share button at the end of this post and actively encourage your friends to come over and do the same!

Then VERY IMPORTANT leave us a comment on this post telling us you did! We can’t see your share unless we are friends so no comment=no entry 🙁

Easy Peasy.

Contest ends Monday the 14th at Midnight!

Pssst…If you can’t wait to see if you are the winner and need this book now or want a Sneak Peak into it check it out on Amazon.

Full Disclosure: This is not a paid review nor did I receive free merchandise to do this review. Links for purchase will yield a small commission if a purchase is made through them but does not increase cost to you in any way.

 Winner Announcement!!!

We are excited to announce that our winner is Diana Wharton!!

Congrats Diana!!!

SURPRISE ANNOUNCEMENT!!

We have been given a SECOND copy to give away!! Check back for the giveaway post to be up later today for you to enter!!

Check it out here!!