Master Slow Motion Food Videos: The Art of Mouthwatering Cinematography

Ever wonder how those drool-worthy slow motion food videos are made? You know the ones – syrup flowing perfectly over pancakes or cheese stretching for days. Professional food videographer Nick Anderson breaks down how to create these eye-catching shots.

You Need Serious Light

"For slow motion, you need a lot of light," Nick explains. That's because when you shoot at high frame rates with faster shutter speeds, everything gets darker.

In this shoot, Nick uses a two-light setup: one diffused main light and a spotlight behind to make the subject pop from the background. He warns against just cranking up your ISO to brighten things, since that adds unwanted noise to your footage.

Getting the Right Shutter Speed

For that perfect motion blur that makes slow-mo look good, Nick follows the 180° shutter rule: "If we're shooting something at 120 frames per second... we would double our frame rate and that would give us 240, so 1/240 would be our proper shutter speed."

Since the camera doesn't have exactly 1/240, he goes with 1/250. This isn't a strict rule though – faster speeds give you crisper motion, while slower speeds create more blur.

Focus Before You Shoot

"I'm always shooting on manual focus when I can," Nick says. He only uses autofocus when shooting on the move or in unpredictable situations like restaurants. For studio work, 99.9% of the time, he's using manual focus.

He places a business card (or in this case, weird self portrait!) exactly where the action will happen and checks his monitor to make sure it's sharp. This prevents the disappointment of getting a perfect pour that's slightly out of focus.

Control Your Depth of Field

Your aperture setting determines how much of the scene stays in focus. Want that blurry background effect? Nick suggests settings around f/2.8 to f/3.5.

Need more of the scene in focus? Go with f/9 or f/11, but remember you'll need even more light. Your lens choice matters too – a 90mm macro lens creates a much shallower depth of field even at higher f-stops.

Tell a Story with Multiple Angles

Instead of just one shot of syrup pouring, Nick takes several – three to five shots of the same thing happening from different angles.

"I'll try to capture the syrup as it's coming right out of the spout, and then I'll capture it hitting the pancakes, and then I'll do a close-up of that," he explains. This gives you options when editing and creates a more interesting cinematic sequence.