Photography in dining rooms

[sexyaznboy]

Not sure if this the appropriate forum to ask, but here it goes...

 

I love to take photos of my meals as part of the photo album of my cruises. Is this activity acceptable to the restaurant staff and to our fellow cruisers? I don't want to be inappropriate but after the cruise I like to go back and look at all the wonderful dishes I've shad.

 

Thanks for the advice! :)

[tommui987]

Is this activity acceptable to the restaurant staff and to our fellow cruisers?

 

I would have no problems with it - unless you brought out several floodlights, over arrange the table and such.:-)

[xlxo]

Food porn is becoming more and more common. On a cruise ship with tourists.... you see it even more...

 

Keep in mind....

• is the meal shared... some don't want to wait for that flash to recharge.
  
• please don't stand on your chair for that high aerial shot.... It's one reason why it's discourage at NYC restaurants.
  
• watch the flash..... others can get blinded
  
• try to order different dishes around the table.... you can maximize your porn opportunities....
  

 

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[donaldsc]

Not sure if this the appropriate forum to ask, but here it goes...

 

I love to take photos of my meals as part of the photo album of my cruises. Is this activity acceptable to the restaurant staff and to our fellow cruisers? I don't want to be inappropriate but after the cruise I like to go back and look at all the wonderful dishes I've shad.

 

Thanks for the advice! :)

 

I will be the scrooge here. I think that taking pictures of everything that you eat or in the case of the buffet taking pictures of everything that is available to eat completely interferes with the ambience and flow of the meal. However, I also have no right to interfere with you taking pictures of whatever is on your plate.

 

However, should you try to take a picture of what is on my plate or what is in the general vicinity of my plate as has happened a couple of times on cruises that I have been on, you will find your camera floating in my glass of iced tea or covered with gravy.

 

If you are a food porn nut, I would suggest that you request a table for 2. That way you will not annoy other people at your table.

 

DON

[mskaufman]

While I do not take a picture of everything I eat I have taken pictures of food (both on my plate and at the buffet) and no one has ever complained. In the MDR we do tend to sit with people we know so that might make it less of a problem than when you are dining with people you do not know. On one cruise I did a video of the lunch buffet to show my parents what they were missing.

[pierces]

Only occasionally and never with a flash. Most food tastes better than it looks but every once in a while, it comes out pretty. Once in a greater while, I think of taking a picture before shoveling the first bite into my mouth...:o

 

 

Skipping the flash is just courteous in my mind. The photo was taken in the dim lighting of Giovanni's table on the Serenade and a sudden blast of 5500K light would sort of ruin the ambiance.

 

Just my opinion...but I have yet to be beaten senseless by an enraged fellow diner!

 

Dave

[Crew News]

Use a small P&S camera to attract less attention. Avoid using flash in any dining room by raising your ISO setting to 800 and bracing your camera with your elbows on the table. If you use Lightroom, you can go to a much higher ISO and use the Noise Reduction feature. C

 

I enjoy taking food photos because so many ask "what did you have to eat?"

 

Edited June 8, 2016 by Crew News

[gottagoacruzn]

I have a digital aim & shoot camera and I take pictures of my dinner, the last cruise I took pictures without the flash and the picts came out not so great, so this next cruise think I'll be usin the flash.

[ab21au]

 

I had to take a photo of this desert we got at the Chefs dinner on our med cruise. Don't know how they managed to hand make 250 of these.

[Krazy Kruizers]

I have taken pictures of various food items on cruises and on land.

[boopsahoy]

Love me some food porn

[sexyaznboy]

Thanks everyone! Those are some stunning pictures, I must say!

 

I don't think I'd be bringing my regular bulky camera, just my small digital camera. We usually book a table for two anyways, but worry about next tables being all snobby and glaring over at me for taking pictures of my food.

 

Yes I'm that type of person lol :p

[boopsahoy]

I have been on over 15 cruises and I have never seen anyone glare at anyone for taking pictures of their food. Snap away! :D

[zackiedawg]

Advice for P&S shooters who don't know too much about photography, on how to photograph your food without a flash...

 

When you turn the flash off, any camera in an 'auto' or 'P Program' mode will do two things - raise the ISO, and lengthen the shutter speed. The key is to hold the camera steady - a tripod or minipod works best, but even just placing the camera against your body or chest, or placing it on a purse or vase or any object that can lean on the table to support the camera, will help...the shutter may need to stay open for a second or two, to pull in enough light to expose the meal, so the camera needs to be perfectly still while it does this.

 

Many cameras have a special 'stacking' mode in their scene mode selection - often called something like 'handheld twilight' - it's a mode that raises the ISO high, but then takes 3-6 frames quickly all together - each individual frames at a shutter speed short enough to be handheld, but an ISO level that would normally result in very very noisy, grainy results...then it stacks those frames together right in the camera, which helps eliminate noise and rebuilds the detail, and delivers a single photo. For small sensor cameras that don't perform very well when the ISO level goes up, this is a great solution.

 

If you're 'advanced' and use modes other than 'Auto', then one other simple piece of advice is to first set the camera's white balance. Most cameras have a white balance mode, and you can select pre-set modes that compensate for different types of indoor lighting, so you can avoid having white tablecloths looking yellow or red, and food being rendered in sickly colors. Some slightly more advanced cameras will offer you a white balance mode where you can set the white-balance yourself - you go to this mode, choose to set the WB, then point the camera at an empty section of white tablecloth and hit the shutter button - it will use the tablecloth to adjust the camera to a neutral white (grey) shade so any yellow, blue, or red color cast is removed before taking the photo.

 

Personally, I do find the flashes a bit annoying, even when not at my table, if there's someone who wants to take photos of every course and every meal - it gets old after 3 or 4 days in a row of it! So I very much appreciate if any food porn types would learn how to take a nice food photo without their flash. Hopefully the above might be a little helpful for non-photographers to understand what's happening when their camera takes a photo without the flash, and can learn to hold steady for the long exposure!

[donaldsc]

I have a digital aim & shoot camera and I take pictures of my dinner, the last cruise I took pictures without the flash and the picts came out not so great, so this next cruise think I'll be usin the flash.

 

No flash. It is very annoying for everyone around you.

 

DON

[Emperor Norton]

I don't see an issue with it, even with a flash. I used to be of the "no flash, no problem" school. Then I saw a number of diners that had glared at the flash users go back to their smart phone or tablet. I figured at that point pretty much everyone was creating excess light. And then there were the ones watching shows/movies on the things during dinner without headphones. People still take flash photos of themselves in the dining room all the time.