re: Cameras for food photography

Hi Nuria! My suggestion is to not purchase the most expensive top-of-the-line digital camera. Get yourself a "really good " camera which won’t be cheap, but not the most expensive as the extra bells and whistles will likely be unnecessary. If you are standing in front of the digital Nikons for example, and there appear to be two or three professional looking cameras, you will do well likely with the least expensive of the bunch. It will still be an awesome camera.

There are certainly differences in the operating systems and the functionality, but you can take any of those upper end brands (Nikon, Canon etc.) and get beautiful results. Make sure that you are looking at the ones that have auto AND manual focus. Don’t get caught up in all the stat details the camera provides because most of these upper end cameras will have the same abilities in some form. Pick one that you feel comfortable about price-wise, one that feels good in your hand, that the knobs and buttons seem comfortably in place when you hold it, that it doesn’t feel awkward in any way – like too heavy.

Your camera may come with a standard 18-55mm lens which is just fine. Play with what comes with it to see what you prefer and then determine if you need to upgrade.

Basically, it is all about choosing an upper level camera and learning how it works and learning how to make it do what you want it to do – regardless of brand.

If you are looking at these upper level cameras, all of them will allow you to choose to take pictures at very high resolution – meaning the images on your camera memory are saved very large. It is these very large images that magazines generally require. So it is best to shoot your cakes at these high levels just in case they come knocking. When you download the images to your computer, make sure that when you save them, that your computer software does not drive the image size down because softwares often will and it is easy to forget this.

Once you get working with the camera, you will realize some things that you need to solve. Simply consult your manual for the hundredth time and look online until you figure it out. For example, your images look a little blue or too yellow, but you find online that there are household lightbulbs that you can use that emit a white light similar to daylight instead of a yellowy light and so on. So yes, the camera is only part of capturing a great image. How you snap the picture as an artist is another part – angle, height, central focus and so on.

Don’t stress about which camera. Pick a really good one and go for it. Then make it do what you want it to do.

Best wishes!
Beverley Way