Playing with lights

I like reading food blogs.  I don’t proclaim this to be a food blog – this is just a blog for all my random ramblings of my interest of the moment.

However, I do like the pictures I see on food blogs.  And we do have a camera that some of the food bloggers use or have used at some point.  And I know the lighting we have is not good for the pictures I take.  I also don’t think I’m that great with playing with software to try to make the pictures look better.  That’s because I don’t know what needs to be done to the pictures to make them look good.

I read a little bit on various blogs as to what the bloggers use to take their pictures – camera, lens, lighting, etc.  Since I take the pictures as I cook, usually for dinner, the sun is setting and the available natural light is minimal.  I read about these lights that can be used for food photography.  As a surprise, my husband got them for me.  I tried to put them together – it’s not hard – but it’s easier done with two people.  So we finally put them together tonight.  We also went to Costco today and found lights that are used for mood enhancement – not necessarily used for food photography, but simulating sunlight.  So we bought those, too, to see how they worked when taking pictures of food.

So how did the lights do?  We tested them out tonight while cooking a roast.  Let’s say – both lights did make a huge difference in how the pictures came out.  Both lights made the pictures look soooooo much better!    The Lowel EGO light is taller, and better at diffusing the light.  We only used one Lowel light with one reflector (we have two).   But for the pictures we took, they both lit the food nicely.  Let’s see if I can show you…(ignore the messy background   I’ll work on that, next    And these are all straight out of the camera – I haven’t played with any of the features available in photo software)

This is with kitchen lights on – I believe the lights above the microwave are also on:

This is with the Lowel lights:

This is with the mood lights:

Now, for the main meal – roast.  The first one is with just the kitchen lights and the microwave lights:

We only took pictures with the Lowel EGO lights for the roast:

So I’ve got to say – I’m impressed by these lights.  I’ll be using them more!  And I will be working on setting up my background and settings for taking food pics.  One thing at a time, though!