It’s really easy to take a good picture of your favorite café, and these seven tips can help make sure that you’re always capturing the best shots possible.
Table of Contents
Wait for the right time of day.
You should be aware of the time of day you are taking your photographs. The time of day can make a big difference to the look of your photo and therefore, it is important to know what will work for you.
Early morning light is good for portraits as the light will soften up facial features. Late afternoon light is better for landscapes as it creates more contrast between the sky and landmasses. Sunrise and sunset are great times to capture the sky as they give off bright colours in its sky while dusk is a good time to capture atmosphere with low lighting conditions
Find the best light
As any photographer will tell you, light is the most important part of capturing a great image. You can have the best equipment in the world, but if you don’t use it right and your lighting isn’t flattering, then your photos won’t be anything special.
Light can be natural or artificial—for example, it might come from an outdoor setting or be created by a lamp on a table. When working with natural light in cafés and restaurants, you need to pay attention to how it changes throughout the day: does it get brighter when the sun comes up? Does it become darker as night falls? Natural sunlight is usually best for portraits because it creates nice shadows around faces that make them look more dimensional. Artificial light tends to flatten out these same features and create glare around glasses or other reflective surfaces.
Location, location, location.
Location, location, location. The best part about photographing cafés is that they are literally everywhere. You can find one just about anywhere in the world!
However, if you want to take really great photos of cafés, it’s important to find a location that has good lighting and drinks options. And don’t forget about food. It’s also important to find a place where there aren’t too many people around (unless you want your photos of cafés with people in them). If there are other things going on at the same time as your shoot (a concert or festival), then this could be an excellent opportunity for some unique shots of cafés in action during those times too!
Now let’s talk about some tips and tricks for finding great locations for photographing cafes:
Use a depth of field that complements your shot.
Aperture and focal length are two major factors that impact depth of field, but the distance between you and your subject also plays a role. The smaller the aperture, the greater your focus will be on objects in front of you and less on objects behind you. Similarly, longer focal lengths produce shallower depths of field than shorter ones do at the same settings.
The bottom line: When choosing what shots to take, consider what kind of look best suits them!
Get the right angle.
There are two things you want to keep in mind when finding the right angle:
- Get close, but not too close. You want your subject to be large enough on camera so that the picture doesn’t look distorted or off-kilter. You also don’t want it to be so small that it is unrecognizable. A good way to determine this is by looking at pictures of other cafés online and seeing what works for them, then comparing them with yours.
- Find an interesting angle that allows you to capture the best features of your subject (which we’ll discuss more below).
Get rid of distractions.
Taking pictures of people who are not paying attention to their food is a big no-no. The best pictures show someone enjoying their meal, so take photos when they are actively eating.
- Don’t take pictures of people eating. It’s fine to take pictures of coffee and pastries, but try to avoid taking photographs of customers while they’re enjoying their meals. If you do want to capture them in action, then make sure that they are still looking at the food and aren’t distracted by something else (like their phone).
- Don’t take pictures of people on their phones. When it comes down to it, selfies will always look better than shots where someone is using a phone or tablet as a prop for their own personal consumption—so why not just opt for the selfie?
Follow appropriate photography etiquette.
As a general rule, always ask permission before taking photos of people. Some cafés have strict policies about this, but many are happy to have their patrons photographed. If you’re not sure if you should photograph somebody or not, just ask!
Also keep in mind that bright lights from flash photography can be very distracting for people who are trying to enjoy their food and drinks in your café space. It also might make it hard for them to see what they’re eating or drinking. So please avoid using flash when taking photos of patrons!
Please don’t use any sort of tripods or selfie sticks (unless the staff at the café asks you in advance). These tools can block the view of other patrons and cause problems with balance and safety in our cafes. Also do not bring drones into our spaces—we want everybody within eyesight at all times so we can keep an eye out for safety hazards like spills or fire hazards like candles being left unattended too long near flammable materials such as curtains or tables made out of wood that may catch fire easily due to careless mistakes by staff members like forgetting about lighting candles nearby without checking first whether there’s anything nearby that could catch fire easily).
You can enhance your cafe photographs by using these tips
- Use a tripod or other stable support to keep the camera steady and avoid blur.
- Use a timer to avoid camera shake when you press the shutter button, especially in low lighting conditions.
- Shoot in manual mode so you have total control over aperture, ISO, and shutter speed settings (and thus depth-of-field).
- Use prime lenses that are fast at f/1.8 or wider—they’re optimized for low light shooting conditions like cafés!
- When shooting indoors with natural light only (no flash), use wide open apertures like f/2.8 or even f/4 since cafés tend to be darker than usual — this will help you achieve nice bokeh effects without having to crank up your ISO too high which could introduce noise into your images if not properly cleaned up in post production software such as Adobe Lightroom CC !
Conclusion
We hope these tips, techniques and ideas have helped you to take better photographs of cafés.