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Useful Photography Tip

Useful Photography Tip #69: How to Photograph Steam from Coffee/Tea

Chris Gampat
No Comments
09/28/2013
2 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Shooting Coffee Steam tutorial (1 of 1)ISO 8001-80 sec at f - 1.4
Shot with the Canon 5D Mk II and Sigma 50mm f1.4

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Though the concept of photographing steam may be above the heads of many of the the advanced crowd of photographers, some folks may have never done it at all. The visual of steam coming from a cup of coffee elicits something within us all that draws us all in because it’s something so familiar and so good.

What you’ll need for starters: coffee/tea, a coffee mug, a dark toned background, a strong light-source (window light will do fine.)

For starters, make the java. When it’s boiling, you’ll want to get your camera prepped and ready. We recommend either a 35mm, 50mm, or 85mm lens for this tutorial. Set your camera to manual mode; you’ll need it. When the coffee or tea is boiling hot (yes, for the best results you’ll need to boil and get the water very hot even though they recommend never drinking either of these brews with boiling water) pour it into your mug. Then take the cup to a kitchen table or another surface with good, soft window light. Get yourself into an angle where the coffee is positioned against a dark background.

Position your focusing point over the mouth of the coffee cup and shoot either a perfectly balanced exposure according to your light meter or a little underexposed. We’re giving you these ideas because that you can shoot to whatever settings you’d really like to work with. But for the best results, we strongly recommend working with higher shutter speeds of 1/250th or higher. And to create the effect that we have above, you’ll want to shoot wide open. Slower shutter speeds will result in it possibly disappearing.

The key to capturing the smoke trail overall though has to do with contrast, and if the steam isn’t in front of a dark background contrasting with its light white color, it won’t work out so well.


camera coffee how to photograph Photography steam tea
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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