NikonGear'23

Images => Life, the Universe & Everything Else => Topic started by: Frank Fremerey on June 26, 2015, 16:51:02

Title: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Frank Fremerey on June 26, 2015, 16:51:02
I love the Cuisine of Vietnam and Thailand, alas many of the Restaurants here adapt so much to "European Taste" that after all there is no taste left. Of the items presented here the Tea was very nice (if one took the Lime out in time) and the Phở was OK after adding some hot Sauce. The Gỏi cuốn were also OK, but some of the veggies were too hard for my taste. The traditional "fish sauce" was very tasty. We also had two main dishes both were too tame (German "fade"). Of the Vietnamese Restaurants in Bonn this one is with a big gap the most friendly and the best presented place. The Ambiente is very current (furniture/music). For me taste is most important. I rather eat in a take out with a great cook than in a fine restaurant where my taste buds die of boredom.

Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Gary on June 26, 2015, 17:23:24
The shot of the utensils against the magenta triangular napkin could be used as a logo, especially if shot from above. The food all looks inviting ... or perhaps it was the photography.  ;)

I just purchased a new outdoor grill/smoker/BBQ you need to come over and we'll get your taste buds into high gear.

Gary
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: armando_m on June 26, 2015, 17:34:22
nice images Frank, they make me salivate
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Frank Fremerey on June 26, 2015, 18:14:34
Snapshots with the X100T macro mode. Very good light design in the Restaurant
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Gary on June 26, 2015, 18:55:53
Snapshots with the X100T macro mode. Very good light design in the Restaurant
I have the 'S'. Fuji makes interesting and fun cameras.
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Frank Fremerey on June 26, 2015, 23:55:05
There are some really good food shooters on flickr. And lots of bad food shooters on Instagram. The "I ate that" Photography is next to the "look at me". The first is not food photography the other no self portraiture.

Interesting how human life boils down to: Selfie. Eatie. Sexie.

Very basic. Not very far from our live in the caves .... earlier this year?
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Frank Fremerey on June 26, 2015, 23:57:15
PS ... of course I value your compliments. Sometimes it seems like I am always working. Always trying to spin the story further.

Thank You
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: elsa hoffmann on June 27, 2015, 16:07:49
I am very keen on food photography - your shots are great !
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: HCS on June 27, 2015, 19:29:32
Good looking shots Frank.

I hear you on the dumbing down of original recipes to match the taste in the host country. Try getting some Chinese food in the NL. Apart from some exceptions, you will always get the "Dutchified" Indonesian food. That's too bad. Even though i don't (by a long shot) eat each and every dish of the very diverse Chinese kitchen(s), there are certainly some very nice dishes which can't be had over here (NL, that is).

Sometimes, if you get to know the restaurant owners, they make some exceptions for you.
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Jørgen Ramskov on June 28, 2015, 20:00:58
Even though I just had dinner, I'm hungry again.
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Erik Lund on June 28, 2015, 21:24:41
For me the grain in the back ground wood looks very distracting - Makes the overall images look very rough.
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Frank Fremerey on June 28, 2015, 21:34:19
Erik: The grain is result from Xtrans2-sharpening. I could not yet figure out how to do this pleasantly, neither in the RAF/RAW- nor in the JPEG-Workflow.

Look at a JPEG SOOC here to compare:

Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Erik Lund on June 28, 2015, 22:15:19
I don't know what Xtrans2-sharpening is...
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Frank Fremerey on June 28, 2015, 23:01:47
The Xtrans2 Sensor and the files from it trash everything I ever knew about editing. Bayer pattern sensors behave very similar to each other. With Xtrans colors and contrast sharpening highlights shadows curves. All different.
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Jørgen Ramskov on June 29, 2015, 09:06:51
Adobes tools aren't recommended for X-trans files, but I bet you already knew that.
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Erik Lund on June 29, 2015, 09:33:41
OK, to me it looks like your trying to lighten the shadows, here the table, and thus introduce a lot of noise and double or uneven lines in the edge of the plate.
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Frank Fremerey on June 29, 2015, 10:30:25
@Jørgen: I use PhotoNinja 1.2.5 and sometimes it is a breeze to work with that software. On some files it works exceptionally well. But sometimes I do not even get a result that resembles the JPEG out of cam, in quality. I did not yet understand how to work these files reproducibly.

@Erik: Right. This is a spontaneous shoot in a restaurant at ISO 3200 hand held. In a controlled light environment like my studio I can do the thing with my Sinar and expose 1 second from a sturdy tripod at base ISO.
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: ColinM on June 29, 2015, 11:33:02
I love the Cuisine of Vietnam and Thailand, alas many of the Restaurants here adapt so much to "European Taste" that after all there is no taste left.

Thanks for the pictures Frank.
I also agree with the comment above and from Hans C. Some of the most tasty Chinese food I ever ate was out in the Caribbean on the island of Trinidad. Now that tasted goooooood.
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Frank Fremerey on June 29, 2015, 11:41:29
@Colin: There is a Chinese Restaurant in Hannover, Germany called "Mr. Chiu". He has to menu cards, the second "traditionally Chinese". This is the REAL THING, same as you will eat in China:

Mr. Chiu
Celler Str. 14
30161 Hannover

Not during CeBit or Hannover Messe. Then he will only serve "European Chinese".
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Akira on June 29, 2015, 14:15:34
The somewhat hard veggie in Gỏi cuốn seems to be lemongrass?  I like Vietnamese food, but to me lemongrass is not something to eat with joy.

Apparently the table is made of wenge which is african species.  No wonder it doesn't fit with the Vietnamese food.  :)
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Erik Lund on June 29, 2015, 14:21:41
.....
@Erik: Right. This is a spontaneous shoot in a restaurant at ISO 3200 hand held. In a controlled light environment like my studio I can do the thing with my Sinar and expose 1 second from a sturdy tripod at base ISO.
But the JPG file is fine as is... I don't seem to understand-  It's like you on purpose increased grain? or is it a side effect to sharpening? (Over-sharpening?)

Just trying to understand...
Title: Re: tasteless food, tastefully presented
Post by: Frank Fremerey on June 29, 2015, 15:57:08
Yes, Erik. Pumping tonality through RAW processing for POP effect. Plus a tad of sharpening via Nik output sharpener. Together some grainlike effect you call distrurbing noise. Not even color noise visible.  More artifact noise.

The headroom for such processing in a D600 NEF or even soft JPEG is much bigger than in the X100T. Quite obviously due to physical restraints of 16 MP APSC wich is a pixel density in the D800 range, but also to not perfectly designed Xtrans processors. Bayer sensor processing has come a long way and is now very well proven tech. Xtrans processing is not equally well understood.

Cheers

Frank