A whlie back, me and Sue Ann went to Strawberry fields in new town to meet up with our friend Woo Teck for ‘food photography 101′ and ask for some tips on how to get good food shots with my Nikon D80. It’s been quite a while back since we actually went to this place, but better late than never to tell you all about it right?
Strawberry fields is a small cafe in PJ New Town, near the area with all the banks. It serves western and local food and is a good hangout place for students who are studying in and around that area.
Woo Teck kindly brought along a friend’s 50mm AF1.8D prime lens for me to try with my Nikon and here’s the frist shot I took:
It looks like the juice is glowing
Woo Teck explained to us that the key is to angle your shots and make sure that what you want people to concentrate on in your shot is in focus and that everything else in the background is completely out of focus or only slightly in focus. Having enough light is important as well, because you don’t want to take photos of food with a flash, as it distorts the colour of the food.
Deep fried calamari rings
As a dish to share, we ordered some deep fried calamari rings, which tasted pretty good, although probably really unhealthy. Notice the ‘out of focus background’ look I tried to achieve with the lens that Woo Teck had lent me. If I remember correctly, the setting for the aperture was F1.8 (i.e. the lowest setting = the most blurry background) and I was focusing on the calamari which is slightly right of center of the plate.
Sang Har Mee
I ordered Sang Har Mee for myself and although I liked the flavour of the egg sauce as well as everything else about it, there was just not enough meat in the dish. I’m quite a meat eater and 2 or 3 prawns weren’t enough. Woo Teck’s tip for this photo was to add some utensils to the plate so that people know that it’s food. Although a plate of food should, by common sense look like a plate of food, adding the utensils makes it look ‘natural’ – something is missing without utensils right?
Cantonese Fried Mee
The Cantonese Fried Mee that Woo Teck ordered had the same egg base as my Sang Har Mee but it had chicken and prawns instead of my fresh water prawns. In hindsight, being such a meat eater, I should have ordered this instead. Notice how this shot has no utensils in it? Doesn’t look quite the same right? But I must admit that alot of the photos I take usually have no utensils in the shot, as we’re in such a hurry to eat the food…
Another tip Woo Teck gave was to tilt the camera a bit so there’s more angle to the shot. You could also consider following the ‘rule of thirds‘ where your area of focus is usally off to one of the corners. But you can read more about it if you follow the link.
Steak with mushroom sauce
Sue Ann ordered the steak with mushroom sauce and she said it was a little tough. I find that steak made in small cafes usually isn’t that great. I think it has something to do with the avaialbility of good quality beef. Malaysian beef pales in comparison to beef from America or Australia but beef from these countries is really expensive as it’s imported.
All in all I enjoyed Strawberry Fields as it’s affordable and most of the dishes are quite good, most of all, the restaurant has a very ‘cheerful’ feel to it. Go pay it a visit and you’ll know what I mean.
Strawberry Fields
Lot 14 Jalan Tengah PJ New Town (PJ State), Petaling Jaya
46200 Selangor,
Cuisine: Western + Chinese
Halal
Tel: 03-7960 1268
kevin, 3 years ago
hey william,
nice nice pics there using f1.8
IMHO, think the pics would be better with f2.8
you can use your standard lens kit and put it to f3.5 then use photoshop or picasa to blur out the background.
William, 3 years ago
Hi Kevin: Yeah I thought things were a little too blurry, but this was the first time I used the lens so was still getting used to it…
It takes a bit of work to blur out the background if I’ve alot of photos I want to put up on a post, so for now, I’m content with playing around with my 50mm =)
Thanks for dropping by!
Guccimamasan, 3 years ago
Nice food shoots… haha.. as long as the picture able to make a person stomach grumble, the shot is fabulous… cant wait to see more…
William, 3 years ago
Now if only I could send nice smells through the internet, I’d be able to make people EVEN hungrier. haha.
kevin, 3 years ago
hehe, darn macro lenses.
nvm, will come a day i’ll get my 18-200, wide lens, macro lens, potrait lens……….
Demsi Jake, 3 years ago
Kevin: 18-200 VR is enough period and One day if you’ll get those lens .. AND ?
Willie: Let me share my POV of photography. Don’t let the rules bound you down. Different settings apply to different situation. Your friend wootek is a good photographer he take’s really nice scenery picture but at safe location. He can potentially push himself to be a great photog but let’s see where he goes next =)
William, 3 years ago
Hi Demsi… yeah I know, every situation has a different way for you to take the shot, but you still need some fundamentals… so still learning as I go.
Yeah Woo Teck has some really nice photos, but he only does it as a hobby in his spare time… for now anyway. And I’ve seen the camera he uses to take the shots, it’s gonna fall apart any day now. haha.. but still takes pretty good shots.
Not sure if I’d lug my camera up mount KK like he did…
jason, 3 years ago
Hi there William… your friend Woo Teck really took some nice scenery shots. However, when I look at the Cantonese Fried Mee, it seems to be tilted way too much to the left.
It’s just my 2 cents anyway
William, 3 years ago
hi jason.. if it’s too much to the right, then I probably took the shot. haha… oh well, practice makes perfect.
=)
Demsi Jake, 3 years ago
fmo the tilting is ok ….hehehe …. Yeap it takes extremely a lot of Practise
.. Try doing some event like upcoming thaipusam … can improve your photography 
Btw i have to totally disagree on the flash section you’ve written there. Using flash can be an advantage to your photo. I do not know how to explain but when we meet up i’ll show you how it can help while preserving the color.
William, 3 years ago
ok demsi you should definately show me how that works… unfortunately I only have the flash that comes with my camera. No seperate flash as of yet… haha.