resturant shoot

[phil r calgary ab canada]

greetings!!

 

i have a shoot coming up for a resturant website... have to do the

promo shots and make it look all appealing and fun!!! ohh the

challenges we take on

 

though i looked over the previous site photos the resturant had and

i'll have no trouble doing better... they were some grainy ghastly lit

looking sub-par generic shots with a disposable camera or something,

but provided some easy scouting to see the main interior is quite

large and spacious with a large glass enclosed deck, so i'll have

enough daylight for some of the photos

 

though i probably went in a tad over my head seeing how i've only

dealt with stage lighting for punkshows in bars and some model studio

shoots (which are almost harder on their own but now i get to mix the

two:) but diving in head first is the best way to expand our limits

 

 

i'm assured i'll have access to decent models, staff/food, a framelist

of shots needed by the client and some flood lighting so those are

least of my troubles and i guess i should be thankful for that, though

out of curiousity, how much wattage should i use for the flood lights?

 

my concern is more the fact that i shoot with pentax k-1000, a nifty

handheld meter and a 283 vivatar flash... aka no fancy TTL metering or

slave flashes which make lighting up a resturant so much easier, i can

move lights around pretty easily though, but obviously not while

there's a ton of people there during regular hours at night, how do i

be unobtrusive while doing the shoot and needing flood lights or do i?

 

 

so i'm mainly hoping for some advice about catching the ambience and

faking the natural lighting and mood that resturants thrive on to be

unique while getting good colours on the models and interior

 

 

summary of reading thus far on photo.net from other threads about

scouting it out, especially to find out what kind of lighting i'll

have to be fight to match with films (about 200-800iso colour negs)

and remembering to bracket the flash aperture to find balance between

the food on table and the rest of the interior... but 6-7 multiple

exposures to balance all the different lighting sources sounded too

much for me so i'll pray there's nothing too crazy or cursely

fluorescent (yay for fliters)

 

best advice found yet was to checkout gourmet magazines for ideas and

not get scared by the technicals to relax so the photos show it as

enjoyable place to eat...

 

 

is there anything else i should worry about? thanks for the help

[garry edwards]

Phil,

 

I don't want to be negative but I think you're asking a lot of both yourself and your equipment.

 

My advice would be to use a decent full frame DSLR, using ambient lighting wherever possible and shooting in raw format.

 

Floodlights will be obtrusive and will get in the way anyway, and as you say, you need to capture the ambience.

 

Using 35mm film will be pushing it in quality terms, and if you're going to use filters to try to correct colour casts (impossible unless you don't also have a colour meter, and next to impossible if you do) the filtration will block a lot of your light, making even faster film necessry, with increased loss of image quality.

 

Digital raw however will allow you to correct colour temperature easily and accurately without loss of speed, and you will be able to combine images where necessary.

 

Hope this helps

[rick_waldroup3]

I shoot a lot of interiors. With your equipment, try using Fuji NPS film. It is a great color negative film that is primarily used for portraits, weddings, etc. But it is the best film for mixed lighting sources I have ever seen. I have used it, with no filtration on the camera, in such mixed lighting conditions as flourescent, incandescent, daylight, etc, with wonderful results. The colors are very true. I shoot a lot of architectural stuff by trade and whenever I can talk a client out of using chromes, this is the film I use. However, if you can get your hands on a DSLR, then you will be able to control the situation much easier. Hope this helps.

[brooks short]

I agree with the above comments. Digital capture would be the easiest way to control the color imbalances.

 

Another concern is model releases for the people visible in your photographs. When I've done this kind of work in the past the restaurant staff would explain to the customers, as they entered the restaurant, that photography of the restaurant was happening that evening. The patrons would then be asked to sign a model release.

 

For a signed model release to be valid there has to be compensation of some sort for the person in the photos. That can be as ssmall as a dollar. Usually the management of the restaurant will give the patron a free drink or appetizer etc, to make the model release a contract with compensation involved.

[shawn_hooper]

Brooks and Garry have some great words of wisdom (even though I'm not a big digital fan(.......loooong pause....) yet. But two more bits of information. It does sound like everyone (you and the restaurant may be looking for a awful lot. And secondly, a lot of the "spontaneous" shots in magazines and other ad's aren't. Perfect example: when I was last in Las Vegas, I saw some ad shots for one of the main hotels on the strip having some promo photos done. So I hung out for a bit (long enough to see how much and what type of equipment was used). And (as the photographer was shooting digital proofs) his ?casual? shots were coming out great. But they rehearsed those shots a few times before he started shooting film (6X7 Mamiya?fyi). But my point is a lot of ?casual? or ?impromptu? shots are staged. That?s what I did when I shot scenes like this sound for restaurants.

[jim_simmons]

Or consider shooting medium format if you can borrow or rent a camera (Pentax 67 would feel familiar to a K1000 shooter). Like Rick said, Fuji negative film handles different lights well, but NPL, as opposed to NPS, is tungsten balanced and handles different lights even better. Wide shots of a restaurant contain so much detail that 35mm shots tend to look a little soft. Your client will be very impressed by the crispness of a MF shot. If you are forced to use slow shutter speeds, you'll need to time your shots when all the people are fairly still. Good luck.

[david_chananie]

Have one couple set up in the foreground and set up the light for them. Have them and the waiter, if any, sign the model releases. They freeze when you shoot. Use a slow shutter speed to capture the ambient light and everybody else in the room. All the other customers should come out blurred in the picture, hence unidentifiable, hence you don't need model releases for them. Try this out beforehand so you can see the results to decide if this is the way to go.

[phil r calgary ab canada]

thank you sooo much for the info... i've used NPS for other shoots outside because the pro fuji stuff is pleasent even in stark sunlight, with flash or in deep shade

 

Agreed that raw format would be easier to edit in photoshop... but! if I've never used a DSLR outside of playing with it in the store. I was lost trying to navigate through all the menus and settings. It would drive me nuts -- on top of it raise the pressure and doubt if a client looking over my shoulder saw me fumbling through a 3/4" thick manual. If i only have the camera for the weekend... i don't feel it would enough time to be as comfortable as shooting with my fearless K-1000.

 

Thank you for the reality check though and i'm saving up for a nice mid-ranged priced digital because i know it's survival as a pro. It would be easiest to deal with different lighting and have instant results to adjust lighting. With that thought, I have a cheap digital p&s that i can check like a polariod for the lighting differences if they are extreme or not. Hopefully it'll be be all natural and ambient.

 

Not mentioned is that I don't have a budget to rent equipment as I'm not getting paid for the first shoot, only for film and free food. If the guy who contacted me gets the contract and i get a good portfolio, there's a number of other bars and resturants we can approach.

 

Last question... What is a rough fair rate for architecture / resturant work 10 years of experience or not? (i do have about 4years of portraits experience)

 

noworries about the model releases and posing, but short Dof will help immensily here. if this all goes through i'll post some of them here...

 

cheers to you fine people

 

gooday

[phil r calgary ab canada]

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/greer/incadem.htm

 

thought this might help others who might have this quesiton in the future

 

cheers