I have been engaged with some food photography lately and I must admit that never thought it can be really interesting and challenging at the same time! I know like portraiture some photographers prefer to shoot with only natural light while others deeply believe in artificial lighting. In my case, I belong to both groups meaning I always do my best to pick the right tool for the job.

In the following example, I tried to show off a little bit of creativity by shooting the food with a telephoto lens and a tilt/shift adapter to play with depth of field. The lens was Mamiya 180mm f/4 SB with Mamiya tilt/shift adapter mounted on Mamiya RZ67 Pro IID. As usual, the digital back was Mamiya DM22 (Leaf Aptus-II 5). I used two Elinchrom Ranger Quadra RX A heads, one to the camera right modified with Elinchrom Deep Octa 70cm and the other one was a gridded snoot far left of the dark table used for the photo shoot.

I must admit that I do not like to shoot tethered at all however, sometimes it can be a really good time saving tactic when you really want to make sure that everything is under control in virtually no time! Capture One 7 is very reliable program for either photo editing and shooting tethered especially with Mamiya/Phase One digital backs.

The following statement can apply to any photography genre! Next time you want to shoot some still life, think twice! Try something you have never tried before or have been thinking about for some time if the opportunity is there!