Texas-style calamari for dinner at Yuma Southwestern Grill, Taipei.

Dinnertime is a great time for photography with both your food and dining companions making good subjects. Here in Taiwan, it sometimes seems like there are more people in a restaurant photographing their food than there are people eating. And by far the majority of those taking photos are doing so with their cell phones and various pocket sized digicams. If you’re out for some kind of celebratory dinner or other special occasion, taking pictures of your meal can be a good way to preserve memories of the dinner.

Obviously, when you’re taking photos of your dinner, the main point is not to take photos but to enjoy the food. Family and friends will usually be patient with your photography to a certain extent (and may well be taking photos themselves) but you don’t want to cause them to delay eating for too long. So get your shots quickly, put the camera aside and dig in to the feast. Here’s a couple of suggestions to help you get good photographs quickly.

Know your settings on the camera in advance. Restaurants and the like are often dimly lit, so set your ISO to 800 or 1600 before the food comes so that you’re ready. Use available, natural light. The in-built flash on your camera may cause the food to have a greasy, sweaty look to it so be sure to avoid using it. Try and use a shallow depth of field where possible – set the aperture wide open if your camera offers an Av or M mode, otherwise try the macro setting. Pay attention to your white balance as restaurants often have fluorescent or tungsten lights that cause sickly looking color casts. You may need to experiment a bit with different settings to achieve a nice look. In terms of composition, remember the rule of thirds, and try shooting at different angles. Finally, before you go to the restaurant, take a look at the work of a few professional food photographers to give you some inspiration. I can highly recommend the photos of Adriana Mullen, a food photographer and chef in the New York metro area.

That was the Daily PhotoTip number 23. If this post was useful to you, why don’t you subscribe to my feed, leave a comment and share it with your friends. You can also get access to exclusive content and special offers by subscribing to my newsletter. Sign up today. Thank you.