Before & After Monday: Using Mirrors for Focused Light

No, this isn’t a repeat post although you’d be excused for thinking so based on the photos looking just like Friday’s post!

I thought I’d do a short “Before and After Monday tutorial” on using mirrors to add focused, directional light to your food photographs because it’s been a while and this is a very useful, handy and easy tip to help you with your food photography.

The above side by side images were taken within moments of each other.  Neither has been edited at all other than to add my watermark – that’s exactly how they came out of the camera.

Here’s the camera details for both images:

Left:

Camera: Canon 5DMKII
Lens: Canon EOS 50mm 1.8
Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 4000
White Balance: Auto
Natural light with a white foam board reflector to the right

Right:

Camera: Canon 5DMKII
Lens: Canon EOS 50mm 1.8
Camera Mode: Aperture Priority
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 4000
White Balance: Daylight
Natural light with a small table mirror to the right

The two big differences are the white balance and the addition of a mirror.  As you can see, switching the white balance from auto to daylight in camera warmed the entire photo up giving it nicer, richer tones.

But, even with the white foam board reflector, the image on the left is still rather dull and there is definite shadow along the right side of the package. The foam board worked hard and did the best it could but the image is lifeless.

Enter a handy little mirror on gorillapod type flexible arm:

I positioned the mirror to the right and pointed it exactly where I wanted the light to rest.  It was a small mirror with a small reflective surface so it was just a small pocked of light but I got it exactly where I wanted it.  Such a small change and it made such a big difference!

Below is the image after post processing.  All post work was done in Lighroom 4 and consisted of updating the camera profile to Camera Standard, switching from linear to medium contrast in the Tone Curve window, adjusting the Tone Curve light and highlight sliders to +3 each, adjusting the Clarity slider to +4 and finally, sharpening to +73 and Luminance Smoothing to +16.

Take a look around your house and see what type of mirrors you can find and then experiment with sizes and angles and see what you can come up with.  It’s a very inexpensive, quick and easy way to add some directional lighting to your food photographs!