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Danielle makes some awesome tasting and looking desserts. She reads a blog that has the most amazing food photography. Sorry – don’t have it right now. Maybe Danielle can post a link in the comments. We started out this morning on a run to find almond flour, which we found at the Whole Foods store.

She made the these delicious macarons, which tasted really good. She claims that she failed that they weren’t supposed to look like this. I don’t know about that; what I do know was they looked delightful and tasted heavenly. Chocolate is always a good thing. After Danielle got done making them we decided it was time to try our hand at food photography.

The camera was set up so we could see the image up on the laptop screen right away, which was a huge advantage to making it easy to try different lighting techniques. first image was taken with the Nikon D300 and the 50mm f1.8 lens. We messed around with the lighting quite a bit. This was was done with using an SU-800 commander on the D300, then used a SB-800 and SB-900. The SB-900 had a Honl grid on it. We had a pretty small depth of field since I did have aperture at f1.8.

This next image below is a closeup of the same dessert. For this we used the Sigma 150mm f2.8 macro lens. This one also has a short depth of field as the aperture was wide open at f2.8. We used a similar lighting scheme with both the SB-800 and SB-900. We were using a reflector too, but honestly I don’t remember if this image had it.

Last one for tonight are Danielle’s blueberry scones. We were kind of tired by this point and didn’t spend much time getting them set up (or maybe our hunger was getting the best of us). I went back to the 50mm f1.8 lens again. Similar lighting. Next time I do this I should get a photo of how the lights are set up.

Ok, so what are the 3 secrets? Well, they’re really not secrets, but it did make for a good title:

1. Start with a great subject.

2. Use a tripod with multiple light sources.

3. Use a tack sharp lens with a wide-open aperture, if you want a nice blurred bokeh.

I have a new-found respect for food photographers. Now I’d like to learn the right way to do this!