Notable Photographs: December 5th - 11th

For this week's photographs, I decided to include some successes and some misses. I feel its important to highlight both as a way to learn what is working for me and focusing on how I can improve the shots that need it.

I recently discovered a local Akron cupcakery (is that a word?) that is making lower calorie treats using organic ingredients and whole wheat pastry flour. Interested, I stopped by in order to find out more.

After introducing myself and asking permission, I took a few shots around the front of the store. Here was a shot of one of the cases:


This photograph was taken with no flash, an aperture of f/8.0, 1/13 second shutter speed, and an ISO of 400. I did end up sharpening the photo one tick in Picasa. I chose an f-stop of 8.0 to maximize the depth-of-field. The only downside to the photo is the light reflections. I'm actually looking forward to receiving both a lens adapter and a polarizing light filter for a holiday gift that will hopefully do quite a bit to minimize those reflections.

I also managed to take a couple close-up snapshots of the cupcakes I bought today:


This was taken with no flash, custom white balance, aperture setting of f/8.0, shutter speed of 1/2 second, ISO of 200, and using a tripod. I actually took several shots of this at different exposure levels. I was concerned that the white swirly cream would get lost in the white background, but I think it actually came out quite well as the two colors are definitely discernible.

My other favorite was a chocolate cupcake with white frosting and rainbow jimmies (aka "sprinkles"):


This photograph used the same settings as the last one, so I won't belabor the point by writing them again. The thing I love about this photo is the clarity of the sprinkles. I really think it makes the photo "pop," if you will. Additionally, the imperfections in the piped frosting and how they catch the light also interest me.

Moving on to a different venue, I was a little surprised at how the pictures came out at a local restaurant:


This photograph was taken in a dimly lit bar with no flash using a tripod, custom white balanced against a napkin, ISO of 200 to minimize noise, shutter speed of 1/2 second, and an aperture of f/2.8 in order to emphasize a shallow depth-of-field. After being cropped and resized, the image was lightened a few ticks in Picasa. What surprised me about this image was that the light meter inside my camera indicated that this was a properly exposed photograph. At the same time though, I found the original too be too dark. Even lightened in post-production, I find the image to be a bit dark. I didn't want to lighten it beyond this for fear of introducing noise and washing out the rich colors. Any thoughts?

At another restaurant I ate at this week, I had better luck with ambient lighting and while the images aren't well-lit, they aren't nearly as dark as the previous photo. Here was a shot of my composed salad:


This was taken using the tripod and no flash, an ISO of 400, an aperture of f/5.0, and a shutter speed of 1/4 second. I wanted to keep the depth-of-field mid-range so that I captured the detail at the front of the plate as well as the rear. The photo was not lightened in Picasa at all. While I think the photo is a bit dark, it also really does capture the lighting in the restaurant as well. I think I'm beginning to get a little gun shy about lightening my photographs too much in order to make them appear brighter than they really are. One, that wasn't the experience at the restaurant. Two, too much lightening and I'll introduce noise and a washing out of the colors.

Here was a shot of my entree for the evening:


This was taken using the exact same settings as the photo above. While I think it would've looked more alluring under better lighting conditions, this was how the food appeared to me in the restaurant. I'm happy with the photo, especially the detail.

I received a shipment of pomegranate juice from POM Wonderful this week. I hope to feature them on the food blog in several recipes. Here was a deliberately composed shot featuring four of the ruby red beauties:


This was taken in my grandmother's kitchen which has a notoriously bad yellow tinge from the overhead florescent lights. After custom white balancing, I think the image came out rather well, although the area in the lower right portion of the image came out a lot whiter than I had hoped. This was shot using a tripod, ISO of 200, aperture setting of f/2.8 (for narrow depth-of-field), and a shutter speed of 1/6 of a second.

For the final photograph of the post, I thought I'd include something food-related, but not specifically a food photo, a nighttime exposure to a local Mexican restaurant:


In an attempt to capture more detail, I actually stopped down the exposure by reducing the aperture (thus increasing the f-stop) and then tried to capture additional detail by using the flash in a "fill" scenario. This was an f-stop of 4.5, shutter speed of 1/13 of a second, custom white balanced against the lit snow, and an ISO of 800. My primary goal was to take a handheld picture of a night scene, so I increased the ISO so that I could reduce the shutter speed in order to minimize blur. Interestingly, the white specks were not noise, but reflections from the falling snow. The flash definitely filled in some of the detail that would've otherwise been missed, but I'm not entirely happy with the resulting photo. Notice the washed out roadside sign at the rear/top of the photo. Any thoughts on ways to improve the shot?