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Viral Smartphone Photography & Video Techniques – Taking Great Food Photos On Your Smartphone | David Loftus (Jamie Oliver’s Food Photographer)

Sony and Jamie Oliver’s food photographer David Loftus, have joined ranks to offer some tips on how to capture the perfect Christmas dinner using the Sony Xperia XZ. A trend that is ever growing, food photography, will be an even hotter topic across social media this time of year, so Sony has teamed up with renowned food photographer David Loftus to give his top tips on showing off your festive gastronomical delights using your smartphone.

We have published a video below featuring David Loftus using the Xperia XZ to capture food. Enjoy!

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Follow David’s tips and you’ll be picture perfect in time for serving and capturing your festive dinner.

1.     Take the pictures whilst the food is fresh to ensure the glossy tones and texture aren’t missed. This means speed is of the essence. With Xperia XZ simply hit the dedicated camera button to take an instant picture in a fraction of a second, not only will it ensure the picture is taken quickly, the Superior Auto mode recognises your subject matter and selects the dedicated Gourmet Mode to pick the best settings

2.     Lighting it key to ensure the vibrancy of your food is brought to life. Don’t be afraid to move your food and take it to a window. Even if a section of your food is in slight darkness, with the added light from the window it will make the dish stand out

3.     If you’re in a restaurant with dim-lighting or candle light try not to use the flash. It tinges the colours and doesn’t show off the reality of the food and the setting. Xperia XZ will recognise the low-light situation and adjusts the all the settings making sure the colours are just right.  If you need a bit of extra light and it’s dark outside, try using the menu to bounce light off a candle back into the picture frame.

4.     When capturing your chef skills you want to make sure you include movement. Move clutter out of the way and simply touch the screen on the food element you want in focus and the advanced Predictive Hybrid Autofocus will make sure your cake making is always free from blur

To accompany the great features within the Superior Auto mode, Xperia XZ has a fantastic range of manual options perfect for detailed photography. For those looking to improve their skills David Loftus says, “Capturing and sharing the perfect image of your homemade efforts or even food you’re proud to be served in a restaurant is a satisfying feeling, declutter your table so your picture focuses on your food, get the lighting right or adjust your ISO settings and go from there. Play around and have fun with the set-ups, manual focus can help set the scene in a busy restaurant by making the foreground your focus and everything behind a backdrop. But if you’re just in a rush, the beauty of smartphone photography is the speed, take a picture instantly using the Superior Auto mode on Xperia XZ and you’ve got a shareable shot instantly. Above all else though, practice makes perfect.”

About David Loftus

Award-winning, influential and internationally acclaimed, David Loftus’ photographs for the books of Jamie Oliver, Rachel Khoo, Gennaro Contaldo, Elizabeth David and April Bloomfield have brought food to life for millions of people. For over 20 years, David has photographed over 100 books including all but one of Jamie Oliver’s international best-sellers. He has also directed television commercials including one of the most successful food ads of all time, for UK supermarket Sainsbury’s. He works with a range of advertising clients such as American Express, Dove, Fortnum & Mason, Nespresso, Pizza Express and Philips, to name a few.

His work with Jamie Oliver alone has resulted in international book sales in excess of 30 million copies. There can be few people with any interest in food who have not at some time looked hungrily at David’s pictures of Jamie’s food and not been immediately inspired to cook.

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