Ever since I got a Canon Rebel as my Christmas present last year, I’ve been trying and trying to take better photos. While a fancy camera is nice, it doesn’t do all the work for you. And better lenses can cost anywhere from $100 into the thousands. Being a student 9 months out of the year and having an awesome but unpaid internship over the Summer, I’m on the lookout for anything cheap that enhances photo. Since I’ve started using these(all under $20!), I’ve had a few photos accepted onto Foodgawker and Tastespotting—proof that you don’t need all the bells and whistles for your photos to get noticed.

1. Close-Up Macro Filter Lenses: $10.49

These are perfect for the person who has just bought the fancy $500 camera and doesn’t want to pay anymore for specialty lenses. I first learned about these from Caroline who takes amazing food photos and hoped that buying them would help me take pictures half as good as hers.

Each lens magnifies a certain amount: x1, x2, x4, and x10. They can also be stacked on one another for even more magnification, so for instance you could make a x15 by stacking the x1, x4, and x10 lenses. It can be hard to focus the camera with them on, but if you’re patient they’re good for close-up shots of food. And for the price they’re really quite a bargain.

2. Dollar Store Placemats: $1

I’ve been trying to get better about adding props to my photos and the easiest one so far to master has been the placemat. Picking a background in contrast with the food will make it stand out more. Since I didn’t want to break the bank, I went to the dollar store. I didn’t keep track of how much I spent, but I see 5 placemats, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say I paid $5. That certainly sounds like a reasonable deal to me.

3. White/Grey Posterboard: $.10-.99

Another easy and cheap background is posterboard, which you can find at any CVS in the crafts aisle. White is a favorite color for food bloggers because it draws no attention, putting the spotlight solely on the food. You can use it as a background or, like the placemats, underneath as a surface.

Another tip the photo editor at a newspaper I take pictures for told me is to use a slightly grey-toned paper to set a camera’s white balance under natural light to get truer colors. Jessica does a great job at making colors pop with a grey background.

4. Natural Lighting: Free

We all know lighting is important. Last December I made a light-box specifically for it. But there’s NO reason to pay a penny for it, especially during the Summer when the sun’s out until 8pm anyway. Natural lighting provides for the best food photos, which is why anything you can buy at a hardware store tries to replicate it.

Take advantage of it whenever and wherever possible. And I truly mean “wherever”; if the best lighting in your house is in the spare bedroom, take the plate of food and camera there. You might feel silly at the time, but with a close-up no one will be able to tell the location anyway. And you can always crop the bed out of the background; I’ve done that.

What are your cheap photography tips and tricks?

In cooking, the “holy trinity” is onion, carrots, and celery—start any dish by sautéing those three vegetables and it’s a sure favorite.

But when it comes to the other half of food blogging—the actual photographing—it’s a whole new ball game. To take good photos, you need to account for plating, lighting, and camera angle.

Plating:

Chili-Rubbed Sole With Sauteed Kale and Avocado(post to come)

The best way to start plating is with a clean, white plate. That lets the colors of the food pop naturally. The more mingled the components of a plate are, the more cohesive the overall photo looks. And a variety of textures and angles creates motion and keeps the eyes moving over different areas.

Photo from Raw Vegan Hazelnut Cream Cheese

Plating also can extend to the background, as well. Even when the dish is the main focus of the photo, you’re still showing whatever’s in the camera’s view and this can be disruptive to the overall photo. Choose either a neutral background or one that continues the theme of what you’re photographing. And always make sure the prime subject matter is in focus.

Camera Angle:

Photo from Gluten-Free Chinese Dumplings

In general, there are 3 typical camera angles: Overhead, same-level, and eye-level(slightly angled down). Each one should be used to highlight different features of a plate, but the most general two to use would be same-level or eye-level. Camera angle is also what lets you reveal or hide the backdrop to your photo, so consider that as well when choosing how to photograph it.

Lighting:

Photo from Grasshopper Brownies

When it comes to lighting, natural is almost always best. If you can find a spot with a strong, clean, natural light, then by all means use that. The more angles that the light hits the food the better as that reduces shadows.

Photo from Better-Than-Boxed Brownies

The other option for lighting is a light-box, which I use probably more than anything else. The benefit of a light-box is that it gives you complete control over lighting and shadows. The drawback of a light-box is that they don’t let you continue the backdrop but rather create a focused, narrow space.

Do you have any questions on any of these? Now, I’m not saying I’m an expert at this at all; in fact, most nights I’ll eat dinner out of the frying pan if I don’t have to photograph it so I don’t have to do more dishes. I’ve learned most of these tricks by doing the exact opposite and looking back only to see how bad they actually were. The best tip is to just keep snapping away, because the more photos you take the better your eye gets for taking photos.

It’s not even Christmas yet and I’ve already spent the past few days playing with my new toy.

After seeing Ashley then Holly and Katie all make one, I decided to jump in. Photography is becoming a fun hobby of mine, and this seemed like the next natural step. It gets dark by 4pm now and good food photos past them have become impossible. I’d be lying if I said I never made dinner at 3pm just to photograph it… Oh, the life of a food blogger.

It makes for really well-lit photos like this:

Or this:

Or this:

Now, I am not a handy person by any means. The craftiest thing I made before this was probably made out of gimp. However, I didn’t have too much trouble throwing this together. I used these instructions. Here are some thoughts about the whole project:

• You only really need 2 lamps: One for each side. Be sure to get daylight or white lights since those will make for the purest lighting.
• The bigger the box you use, the better. You can always focus in on a small plate of food but if your box isn’t very big you can’t step back to see a large plate. I used a box about 18 inches by 2 feet and I wish I had used something bigger.
• I wasn’t sure about what white material to use for the sides. I ended up going with white parchment paper since that’s what we had already. It seems to work just fine and is a very cheap material.
• All-in-all the only things we needed to buy were the clamps and light bulbs, which made the project about $25 in total.
• The toughest part is finding backgrounds/surfaces. So far I’ve taken pictures with t-shirts, pillow covers, poster board, napkins, and full-length table clothes.

I’m totally in love with my light box and determined to bring it back to campus with me next semester even though it’s probably 1/20th the size of my room and I have nowhere to put it. The part I’m still learning about is the background; it’s hard to find material that photographs well, looks natural, and compliments the subject matter. And some of my photos have slip-ups like the visible cardboard behind the peanut butter s’mores bar above. Still, I’m eager to learn and get better.