They make flash units to produce different lighting effects or illuminate areas that cannot be captured with a combination of ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture. A quick search of most articles about taking pictures of food by people that are true camera geeks (not us) say to “avoid flash” as it creates food that “looks greasy and sweaty” or ultimately not very realistic looking. Not very appetizing huh? Does anyone ever want to eat the fake sushi in the window?

Hail almighty Google…

http://www.google.com/search?q=Food+Photography+Flash&rls=com.microsoft:*&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

Having said that, there are cases where flash is essential because there is no way to see anything without it. However, one more thing that I did not consider with the pictures I took was the use of exposure compensation. With exposure compensation, I could bump it up to +1 and back the ISO to 400 to get rid of a lot of the noise. I’m guestimating that my shutter speed would be at 1 second, but I would be able to have a very good naturally lit shot without the use of a flash. You’d just have to hold the camera still for 1 second.

The advantage of this would be that I would have a shot that was not blown out in any part of the picture. If you look at any of my older food shots (or any of John’s shots, past and present) there is an overexposed quadrant on every photo. However, having said that, unexposure is also bad; both of which create quadrants of information that can no longer be retrieved no matter how you manipulate it in Photoshop. I’m going to do a few shots in crappy light with flash, no flash, then no flash with exposure compensation and post them up as a comparison in a bit.

PS: The black bits are chives.

Stephen if flashes weren’t supposed to be used why do they make flash units then? Reminds me, I want to pick up a bounce flash one day.

I can appreciate the fact that you wish not to use a flash to get a more natural light type shot but… when you’re shooting food shouldn’t you be trying showing off its texture, colours etc?

What is that black stuff on the food? lol