I decided to make some red velvet cupcakes for a small July 4th family cookout. This is the third time I’ve made these things and I must say, they are delicious. I wanted to take a picture of one in my homemade macro box before we left but I just didn’t have time. I was a little concerned about bringing all of them because I was afraid there would be none left to bring home. Fast forward a few hours and we arrived back home safe and sound with 5 leftover cupcakes. Time to make pictures. Here’s the recipe:
- 1 homemade macro box
- 1 camera
- 1 off camera flash
I’m a rank amateur when it comes to food photography but if it can fit into my homemade diy cardboard macro box, its so easy, you can’t mess it up. I positioned the cupcake to get the best looking side towards the camera. My 580exII flash was setup on a lightstand pointing almost straight down on top of the box, shooting through a sheet of white tissue paper. Here’s what the overview of the shot looks like:
Camera setup: I had my “nifty fifty” 50mm 1.8 lens set at f10, ISO 100, firing at 1/200th of a second shutter speed. The flash was at 1/16th power and I used Pocket Wizards to trigger the flash.
I played around with the aperture a little bit and even placed a sheet of paper in front of the cupcake at one point as a reflector but there’s just nowhere inside that box that light can’t get to so it didn’t really improve the shot that much. It was a little too easy.
