Here’s a quick behind-the-scenes of yesterday’s halibut photo. I quickly snapped this BTS image with my iPhone before I cleaned up the scene, and yesterday someone asked to see it. I used two-lights: an ABR-800 with Moon Unit for some pretty strong back-light, and then filled in the front of the dish with another Alien Bee light with a large soft-box.

For camera gear I used my Canon 7D with the Canon 70-200 f/4L IS lens extended to 200mm for all shots to compress the background and make the main subject stand out.

The white table-top is a piece of wood I picked up from the hardware store, painted white and then painted with “crackle” paint to give it a distressed look. The final image here doesn’t show the table too well, but when it is visible in food images it adds a nice, subtle texture to the image that I really like.

Here’s a quick behind-the-scenes of yesterday’s halibut photo. I quickly snapped this BTS image with my iPhone before I cleaned up the scene, and yesterday someone asked to see it. I used two-lights: an ABR-800 with Moon Unit for some pretty strong back-light, and then filled in the front of the dish with another Alien Bee light with a large soft-box.

For camera gear I used my Canon 7D with the Canon 70-200 f/4L IS lens extended to 200mm for all shots to compress the background and make the main subject stand out.

The white table-top is a piece of wood I picked up from the hardware store, painted white and then painted with “crackle” paint to give it a distressed look. The final image here doesn’t show the table too well, but when it is visible in food images it adds a nice, subtle texture to the image that I really like.

Stay in touch

Stay in touch and get the latest updates by subscribing to my newsletter below:

Nicolesy Newsletter: Homepage Form

Nicole is a photographer, published author, and educator specializing in Lightroom, Photoshop, and photography. She is best known for her books on food photography but is widely versed in various photographic genres, including landscape, nature, stock, travel, and experimental imagery.

4 Comments

  1. Glen January 14, 2011 at 12:12 pm - Reply

    Thanks for the behind the scene look. Most impressive.

  2. Kevin St-Amour January 14, 2011 at 12:51 pm - Reply

    My wife and I just got done shooting cookies. After some trial and error with flashes, we ended up using window light and bounce. Now we’ll try this halibut set up which is closer to what we were looking for. I was using an 85mm 1.8 but I also now want to try the 70-200 like you did! Thanks for sharing!

  3. Ronnie January 14, 2011 at 3:09 pm - Reply

    What kind of soft-box are you using one the Alien Bee?

  4. So THAT’s how these pics are done. I need to take more care when doing food photography. I just haven’t been happy with my images so far.

Leave A Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.