From lighting to props, these five essential tools will help any food photographer capture eye-catching content that will make your audience's mouths water.

If you're a food photographer, you know that capturing the perfect shot takes more than just a good camera. From lighting to props, there are a few essential tools that can help you create content to draw your audience in. Here are five must-have tools for any food photographer.

Props & Styling Tools.

Props and styling tools are essential for creating visually appealing food photography that clearly tells your brand story. Food photography styling can include plates, utensils, napkins, and other items that complement the food being photographed - either sticking to a set of hues, or creating contrast between the food and set. It's important to choose props that match the style and theme of your photography, whether it's rustic and natural or modern and minimalist.

Additionally, styling tools like a sturdy long pair of chefs tweezers, toothpicks, brushes can help you arrange and perfect the presentation of your food. I also keep a selection of little rests to angle plates, as well as mirrors, shine spray and a handy scalpel for tidying items up before we take any food photographs.

Natural Light & Studio Lighting.

Lighting is one of the most important aspects of food photography. Natural light is great, but it's not always available or consistent when shooting a project with a client. Investing in a good lighting kit can make a huge difference in the quality of your food photography. When looking for a starter kit, a good question to ask is if you will be mainly shooting in a studio, or moving around and working more on-locations or restaurants. If in studios, a wired flash system is great, and I personally use Elinchrom and Profoto. For location work, shooting restaurant photography, a wireless system like the Profoto B10X Plus or the more budget-conscious Godox AD600 - both running off of long-lasting battery packs.

When looking for modifiers that shape light for your food photography, I personally love using a deep white umbrella for producing indirectly shaped light, and a deep octabox for less light spill and more contrast. It’s also worth picking up a solid light stand, like the Manfrotto Master Stand - and to safely hold the stand with your light, attach a Superclamp to the lower part of stem and attach your camera bag as a stand-in, sandbag.

Photography Tripod.

A tripod is an essential tool for any photographer, but it's especially important for food photography. It allows you to keep your camera steady and level, which is crucial for capturing sharp, well-composed images.

I would recommend the Manfrotto 055xPROB and a three-way-head like the Manfrotto MHXPRO-3WG X. This tripod is rock steady, but not too heavy to carry with you, and the tripod head allows for smooth and steady adjustments to the panning and tilting - as opposed to ball-head tripods that most consumer tripods feature, which is really imprecise and can’t handle much weight.

Camera & Lenses.

The most obvious tool for any photographer is their camera and lenses. When it comes to food photography, a camera with manual controls and the ability to shoot in a larger RAW format is ideal. This allows for greater control over exposure and color in post-processing. As for lenses, a macro lens is a must-have for capturing the intricate details of food, as is a more general use A 50mm for more contextually led food photography.

From experience as a senior food photographer, I would recommend buying a refurbished full-frame camera body like the Canon EOS 5D MKII at £169, and a 50mm prime lens, - either like the Sigma 50mm f.1,4 Art Lens or Canon 50mm f/1.4 at around £500/£174. This makes an amazing food photography camera and lens at around £340 - which is a steal and 10% of the cost of a new system.

Image Capture & Editing Software.

As a food photographer, working with brands, agencies and restaurants - it’s important for me to be able to see the imagery that I’m capturing and for the clients to be able to sign off as we’re shooting on our session. A great tool for this, is by using CaptureOne to tether my camera to my computer - showing my imagery live, as well as being able to control the camera via my computer.

I would heavily recommend using this, as not only can you shoot directly into CaptureOne, but is is also a powerful image editor. Many food photographers also use a combination of Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to allow them to fine-tune their images; adjusting exposure, color, and sharpness to create the perfect final product. It’s important to remember that editing should enhance the natural beauty of the food, not completely alter its appearance - unless requested by the client.