Cameras Used in Food Photography

The basic photography information you will use in food photography is actually no different from what you will use in other areas of photography. As in every aspect of photography, you need to have a good command of basic photography information such as exposure, white balance, and the equipment you will use. In this section, I will be sharing the basic photography information you need to take beautiful photos, whether of food or portraits.

Digital Cameras

You can use only your smartphone to take food photos, or you can choose one of the different professional and semi-professional DSLR or mirrorless camera models available on the market.

Smartphones

●  Advantages; The best camera is the camera next to you! Always with you!

●  Disadvantages; As with compact cameras, advanced features such as depth of field and focal length cannot be controlled in many models.

●   Likewise, since they only have automatic shooting mode, the shutter speed (shutter speed; n is the value that determines how long it will fall on the sensor), aperture (the amount of light on the camera Settings such as the aperture) and ISO (the degree of sensitivity of the sensors in digital cameras to light) cannot be intervened, but it is possible to control some of them on some of the latest models or through some applications you can install on your phone. I will explain the details in detail in the smartphone photography section.

● Except for very advanced models, most of the existing telephone cameras have fixed lenses like compact cameras, and their image resolutions, which affect the image quality due to small sensor sizes, are quite low compared to professional cameras.

DSLR and Mirrorless Cameras

These machines are the most advanced types of cameras you should choose if you want to become a professional food photographer. The main difference between them is their size. DSLR cameras have mirrors behind the lens that reflect light to the optical viewfinder. A mirrorless camera does not have an optical viewfinder. The image sensor always receives light and a digital view of the composition is created on the LCD screen or electronic viewfinder. Although mirrorless cameras have similar sensor sizes to DSLRs, they are both lighter and more compact than DSLRs. (I must warn you that DSLR cameras will soon become a thing of the past as a technology.)

The biggest advantage of DSLR and Mirrorless cameras is that their lenses are interchangeable, so lenses with different focal lengths and aperture values can be preferred depending on the shooting subject. Diaphragm or Aperture is the part that helps adjust the intensity of light coming from the lens to the sensor. The part that allows the diaphragm to open and close is called diaphragm blades. Lenses with a wide aperture range and a large number of aperture blades are better. Aperture value is rated by F number. If aperture hasn't meant anything to you yet, be patient until you get to the "Exposure Triangle" section of the book! I will be explaining in detail what aperture, shutter speed and ISO values do in that section.

There are two main sensor sizes for mirrorless and DSLR cameras: 35mm (usually called “full frame”, which has a sensor size of 24×36mm) and APS-C (normally called “crop sensor” , they have a sensor size of approximately 23×15mm).

Full-frame cameras are more expensive and let in more light because their sensors are larger. This means that you can get better results in lower light conditions and higher ISO values without too much graininess (noise) in your photo. Machines with crop sensors have different cropping factors. Crop factor is the full frame equivalent field of view, or focal length, that we get from a camera with a crop sensor. For example, for Canon cameras the crop factor is about 1.6 (i.e. a 50mm standard lens will give an 80mm image in the viewfinder, considering the crop factor), for Nikon cameras this factor is about 1.5.  Crop factor Since the pixel size of the cameras is smaller, their ability to capture detail is less than full frame cameras.