The Camera Never Lies ... But The Light Meter Might

First impressions are as important in the culinary world as they are in the business world. As human beings, we tend to embrace every experience with as many senses as we have available. Before we taste food, we smell it. Before we smell it, we look at it. And before we look at it, we can hear it being prepared and coming our way. How often have you been in a Mexican restaurant and heard the sizzling fajitas approaching before you ever see it? Like a Pavlovian dog, just hearing that noise causes you to salivate in anticipation.

For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while (and thank you, by the way), you may have noticed a trend over the last nine to twelve months that my food pictures have gotten better and better. Until roughly one year ago, I was taking all of the pictures you see on my blog with my cellphone camera. It was convenient, it was inconspicuous, and it did an okay job in better lit restaurants. The problem was trying to get a good picture at the darker restaurants, the Momocho's, the L'Albatros's, the Greenhouse Tavern's of the world. Even though my cellphone camera had a flash on it, it was so dark that the darn thing couldn't even focus.

So, I decided to upgrade to an actual camera. A Canon G12 point and shoot to be exact. And then over the course of the next year, I actually upgraded twice more, first to a Canon Rebel t3i and finally to a Canon EOS 60D. I won't go into the nuts and bolts of why I upgraded, but let's just summarize by saying that as I became more proficient, I realized I needed a more capable tool. And that is a perfectly valid reason why a lot of people spend more money and upgrade to a better camera.

The problem, however, is that from the cheapest point and shoot to the most expensive professional camera out there, if you don't take control of the camera, you will get crappy food pictures in restaurants. Many people put the camera in fully automatic mode, point the camera at a plate of food, and think that is all that needs to be done. In a well-lit restaurant or outdoors in the sunlight, you might be right. The camera can reduce the shutter speed enough where even being handheld is possible without blurring. But in a moderate to dimly lit restaurant? Game over.

Today I met up with a friend at Hudson's Restaurant in Montrose for a beer and some much needed catching up on our respective lives. We went back and forth about what we had been up to and when we got into my recent food photography, I was explaining to her that I always shot in Manual exposure mode because it gave me full control over the resulting picture. Since I am a bit of a control freak, this style of shooting perfectly fit with the pictures I was taking. She didn't believe me when I told her that were I to set the camera to one of the automatic modes, that it would take a crappy picture.

"Fine," I said, "I'll prove it."

We had ordered an appetizer off of the menu to split. I mounted my $1600 camera (including lens) to my tabletop tripod, set the little dial to the "green square" (which is fully automatic on my Canon), and pressed the shutter button. The on-camera flash popped up, the picture was taken and here was the result:


Wait a minute, now ... what is that large gray area at the bottom of the plate? That would be the shadow where the light from the flash couldn't reach to illuminate it. The other problem you may notice is that the light falls off the further back it goes on the plate, so even without the large shadow in the front, the light level isn't even.

Okay, then, so flash is out. By switching the mode from Auto (green square) to Program AE (P), the camera would still pick out all of the settings without using the flash. This would be equivalent to what most people would pick on their cameras when shooting food in a restaurant. Surely it must be better, right? Let's see:


Ack!! What's with all of the gray? Last time I checked, most restaurants served food on whites plates, not gray ones. The problem here is that the light meter built into every single camera (which basically measures the reflected light off of the subject) are programmed to expect 18% reflected light. This number was determined many decades ago when an analysis of thousands of photographs revealed that, on average, 18% of the light striking the subjects reached the film in the camera. So, in the case of Program AE (P) mode, since most of the scene above is reflected white light, the camera toned down the light in order to meet the 18% value. If you've ever taken a picture of a snowy day and wondered why the snow appeared gray and not white, this is the reason.

Okay, enough horsing around. It's time for me (the photographer) to take charge of the camera. In order to set the correct color balance, I pulled out my handy "gray card":


This is literally a 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" cardboard card that I keep with me at all times in my bag that is 18% reflective on one side. Resting the card on my water glass, I used my camera's controls to set the white balance. White balance, for those who might not know, is also referred to as color temperature. If you've ever taken a picture of something white and it appeared a bit blue or yellow, this is due to the type of lighting illuminating your subject. In Hudson's today, the lights above the bar were incandescent bulbs, which tend to make white look yellow.

After obtaining a proper white balance, I switched my camera into Manual (M) mode, selected my settings and took this picture:


This was the picture as it came straight out of the camera. The only alteration I made to all of the pictures above was to correct for barrel distortion and resize them for this blog post. As you can see, when *I* selected the shutter speed and aperture, I managed to capture what I think is a much better exposed picture. Of course, my camera thought the image was too bright, but I simply ignored its suggestion and went with my own.

Once out of the camera and into my photo processing software, I barely tweaked a few color settings to make the image look its best:


I'd suggest you open the images up side by side. The differences are quite subtle. And then open up the first two images and compare the first two to these last two. Big difference, eh?

Okay, fine, so this was in a moderately dim restaurant. What about a real challenge ... say, a really dark outdoor patio around 9 pm where I couldn't even see my dining partner's facial features anymore? I'll take that challenge.

Last Friday I met my friend Elizabeth at Basi Italian Restaurant in Victorian Village located north of downtown Columbus, Ohio. We arrived around 7 pm and they sat us at a quaint little table for two on the patio, just outside of the bar. As we ate and chatted, the sun began to set and by 8:30 or so, the only light source was from the thin sparse strings of white Christmas lights adorning the bar. At that point, I took this picture of our table:


The light you see reflected off the table came from those Christmas light strands. When the dessert finally arrived, it was so dark that not only did auto-focus fail to work, but when manually focusing the lens, I had to use the light from my cellphone in order to properly do so. Once I got everything ready, I pushed the shutter button to take the picture and fifteen seconds later, I got this:


Now, granted, I did do some work on that photograph to optimize it. But it didn't take very long and I don't even think I could've gotten that picture had I set it to one of the automatic settings. By the way, just so there is no confusion, no flash was used to take that picture. And I don't lie, it really was that dark.

So what is the take away from all of this? If you want to take good pictures of food in not-so-great lighting conditions, you're going to have to take control of your camera and get out of the automatic exposure settings. You'll probably also need to get a tabletop tripod, too. Is my new rig a bit more conspicuous at restaurants? Absolutely. But I've discovered through a lot of trial and PLENTY of error, that there just isn't any other way to get consistently good pictures.

Experiencing Modern Mexican At Momocho

Mid-week I received an email from Miss Penny (of Restaurant Dante fame) stating the obvious: It had been far too long since we had seen each other and we needed to get together now. Knowing by now to never question the sage advice that Miss Penny doles out on a semi-annual basis, a series of back and forth emails were sent between her, myself, and fellow foodie Edsel. While we knew that the jumping off point for tonight's festivities would be at the Velvet Tango Room for a few pre-dinner cocktails, it wasn't until Miss Penny made the wonderful suggestion of dining at Momocho Mod Mex that our path for the entire evening became clear. I called the restaurant to ensure a reservation and was given two options, 6:30 and 8:15 PM. Seeing as none of us had any place exciting to be on a Friday night, I went ahead and booked the three of us for the later time slot.

At the appointed hour, the three of us descended upon the VTR and promptly began to enjoy the spoils from another completed work week. In what can only be described as serendipity, who should walk into the bar around 7:00 PM but Momocho's very own Eric Williams and his wife. It seemed that the chef had taken the night off to celebrate his wedding anniversary. Edsel quickly leaned over to me, laughed and whispered, "Well, I guess the chef won't be making our dinner tonight!" Indeed not. I guess this would be a test of how well Chef Williams's staff had been trained.

Momocho Mod Mex was located at 1835 Fulton Road, Cleveland, OH 44113 and can be reached at 216-694-2122. Unfortunately, they are not on OpenTable.com at the present time, so you must call for reservations (and let me strongly suggest that you make one). Even though we had reservations for 8:15 PM tonight, when we arrived around 8:00 PM, the place was absolutely packed on both floors. While there was a small lot next to the restaurant for parking, we opted to park on a side street and walk to the main entrance.

Here was a shot of the front of the restaurant:


Once inside, we checked in with the hostess stand and were told that our table would be ready shortly. We were invited to have a cocktail at the bar while we waited. The bar area was not in a separate room, but took up half of the first floor space, the other half being dedicated to sit down tables for patrons. While there wasn't a single seat available at the bar, it fortunately didn't take long before the hostess let us know that a table on the second floor was now ready. We discovered that the tables were also packed on the second floor, but fortunately, most of the congestion caused by restaurant patrons without a seat was left on the floor below.

Before going any further, gentle reader, I wanted to take a moment to tell you that our dinner tonight at Momocho was going to be the first real low light test of the new Canon PowerShot G12 that I recently acquired. It wasn't an inexpensive camera and from the research I had done prior to its purchase, I knew of its reputation for being excellent in low lighting situations. While there was an actual setting for low lighting where the camera made all of the decisions for you, I opted instead to select most of the other settings myself and let the camera decide the correct shutter speed.

The reason that all of this was important was because it was pertinent to tonight's dinner. Several Cleveland restaurants are well-known (I'm looking at you L'Albatros) for their incredibly dim interior lighting. This makes taking credible and useful pictures next to impossible and I learned early on that even as advanced as the camera was that came with my HTC Incredible, it would either be too dark for the auto-focus to work properly, or if it did, I ended up with a picture that was so dark that no usable image was post-worthy.

Momocho was another restaurant notorious for its lack of light. In fact, it was so dark that it wasn't unusual to see patrons grab the lone candle adorning each table and hold it up to the menu in order to read it. Since I refused to use the flash on my camera if at all humanly possible, I was in essence setting myself up to fail. At least, I would have been with my cellphone camera. While I certainly won't claim that the photos I took were magazine worthy, for a medium such as this blog, if the intent was to give you an idea of what the food looked like, I felt like I achieved my goal.

[Ed. Note: I have since gotten much better at the low light photography through the use of a tabletop tripod and user-selected lengthy shutter speeds. The following pictures should not be an indictment of the poor performance of the camera, but rather the ignorance of the photographer.]

Here were three shots of Momocho's menu, top, middle, and bottom:




I came to tonight's dinner knowing that Momocho was famous for their guacamole. Not only was the guacamole by itself good, but the myriad of variations on that one dish made for an interesting assortment of flavors. Tonight we decided to start with the Guacamole Sampler:


From left to right was the goat cheese guacamole; a pickled corn, jalapeño, and crab guacamole; and finally a smoked trout guacamole. Adorning each bowl was a lime wedge that added a wonderful brightness to each of the samples. As far as guacamole goes, Momocho makes it just the way I like it: a little chunky. So often I see guacamole that has been pureed until it is baby food smooth. What struck me about each of the dishes tonight was that even though they were three totally different flavor profiles, the basic guacamole flavor was never lost. At the same time, each dish was distinct and unique. The pickled corn, jalapeño, and crab version, while well balanced, was probably the least favorite among my tablemates because of the slight chili heat. Personally, I absolutely adored all three.

Accompanying our guacamole appetizer was a basket of freshly fried, still warm corn tortilla chips that had been lightly salted:


Eaten by themselves, the chips were dangerously addictive. Add in some of the cool, creamy guacamole to this crunchy, salty platform and several of us at the table experienced the eyes-rolling-back-into-the-head phenomenon. If there was one complaint, it was one of excess. The bowls of guacamole were fairly large and since there were three of us and three of them, we each essentially ate one bowl. I think a fourth diner would've alleviated that problem. Not that it was a bad problem to have, per se, just something to note.

While I was tempted to order another appetizer (the roasted butternut squash and goat cheese empanadas ... the description just made them sound fantastic), instead I decided to go with one of the taquito dishes for dinner tonight. While they all looked interesting, the chancho (braised wild boar) really captured my imagination.

After a much needed break after our appetizers, our entrées finally arrived. Here was my chancho:


Here was a close-up of the wild boar:


Accompanying the meat were two condiments: salsa verde and a pickled jalapeño mustard crema:


Finally, in order to eat all of this wonderful looking food, I needed a way to get it to my mouth. Warm flour tortillas solved this problem nicely:


To eat, I simply took a pliable tortilla from the stack and used a fork to line the center with the braised boar and some of the vegetables from the bottom of the dish. I then added a line of salsa verde and the mustard crema, folded up the sides and took a bite. I experienced my second eyes-rolling-back-into-the-head moment for the evening.

It. Was. Divine.

The meat was rich and tender without being the least bit gamey. The salsa verde added a wonderful acidity and herbaceous brightness and the mustard crema added creaminess and a bit, just a bit, of chili heat. While the flour tortilla didn't add much in the flavor department, it was soft and pliable and served as an excellent mechanism for getting the food into my mouth. If I could only have this dish for the rest of my life, I would never get tired of it. It was simply that good.

Unfortunately, having finished our trio of guacamoles and chips earlier, I could only eat half of my entrée. You can be sure, however, that the remainder was boxed up and taken with me. I did try both Penny and Edsel's dishes (picadillo and albondigas, respectively) and while both were quite tasty, neither in my mind matched the pure brilliance of the chancho. Any thoughts or worries about Chef Williams not being at the helm of his own kitchen tonight were completely and thoroughly quashed by the food tonight.

Wanting to finish out the evening on a sweet note, the three of us decided to split the Flan:


Once again the kitchen showed great restraint and balance. While, yes, it was sweet, it wasn't overly so. The texture to the flan itself was neither too runny nor too rubbery. For those who don't care for "eggy" desserts, you will be happy to note that Momocho's version had a hint of egg without being overpowering. All in all, this was a fantastic way to end a fantastic meal.

Since Penny and Edsel had paid for their margaritas at the bar when we first arrived, when the check came, it was just for the food (and my water). For the three of us, with all of the food we had eaten, the bill came to just slightly under $74, including tax. With tip, each of us got out of there tonight for just shy of $30 a piece. With leftovers. Given our incredibly tasty meal, it was well worth the money. I honestly can't recommend Momocho enough. The food was inventive, fresh, reasonably priced, and most importantly, delicious. For some reason, this was only my second visit to Momocho Mod Mex in three years. You can be certain that it will now go on my regular rotation from this point forward.