Do not post dark and blurry food photos! My restaurant clients often ask me what they can do about people posing dark or unattractive photos with positive reviews. Small businesses love reviews but only if you make the product look good! If the food in your photos isn’t appetizing, your favorite restaurant will thank you for posting a review without a photo.
So, how do you take better restaurant photos? Take a photography class! Learn about your camera, or watch videos about how to take better iPhone photos. That’s step one. Step two, be it a phone or a camera, the device that you choose to take photos with the second half of the recipe for great photos and 50% of your success. You need LIGHT. Good light. Light that is the right color, temperature, and coming from the right direction. I think many people don’t realize how important the right lighting is and think it’s all about the kind of camera. If you want to photograph food and smaller products on the go, do yourself a favor and grab this light. Ladies, it will fit in a purse.
A small LED light panel like this acts like a small softbox. You can not only change the brightness of the light but also the color temperature adjusts. Have you ever noticed the the light from an indoor lamp can look yellow/amber and the light from outside can have the same blue color of a sunny sky? When you’re photographing something like food it is very helpful to be able to match the color of the light to the space you’re in. With the color temperature adjustment this light can be used in a dark restaurant as well as outside on a sunny day! In a restaurant I tend to turn it to it’s lowest power setting and start there so I don’t ruin the ambiance! I then match the color of this to the indoor light. I position it coming from the left or right of the food. I do not recommend using this as shown mounted to the camera. Front lighting will make the food look flat. Lighting from the side will likely look nicer and give it more dimension — but move the light around the sides and from above to decide what lighting angle you like best. The battery is quite thick, so the “thinness” photo sown above is a bit deceiving. However, the battery works well for me to use like a handle so I can hold this with one hand and my iPhone in the other.
So now I imagine you’re asking, do I always have to carry this around? What if I want to take a spontaneous food photo? Don’t worry, I have a solution for this situation, too. While the above light will be 100% better, you can get a similar effect by borrowing an iPhone from whomever you’re out to dinner with. Open up a website and zoom into an all white section. Adjust the screen’s brightness as needed and BOOM. You now have a small portable light that will drastically improve the photo quality from what you’d get with just the dim restaurant lighting.
Lastly, but most importantly, be respectful when photographing. A well-lit photo and 5 star review is very valuable to a restaurant. However, grab your photo and light quickly, and then put it away. You should bring this out sparingly so as to not ruin the ambiance for other restaurant patrons. If you’re a blogger you may even ask the hostess to be seated near a window or in a brighter area of the restaurant where you’ll be starting with better lighting.
*Please note that this is acutal equipment that I purchased and use. I’ve had this light since 2020. I just recently accepted financial compensation for this product link from my blog after using the equipment for several years.