Spaghetti Lighting Setup

Below is an image of my lighting setups for this bowl of Spaghetti. While you may have seen this on Instagram, this post will provide a bit more insight into my setup and approach that wouldn’t fit into the IG Caption.

Final Image of Bowl of Spaghetti

Behind the Scenes View

This image was a difficult one for me to shoot. Partly because I didn’t love the props and colors I had available to me. By the time I completed the setup, the pasta was also extremely cold.

So, while in the photo above you can see that I did capture steam, I didn’t capture it how I wanted. In the end I Photoshopped it in. I also adjusted colors of the wood in post.

Approach

I wanted a straight on shot for this, for the most part. But I also wanted to be able to make the bowl and pasta seem large and very tall. To do this, I set the camera low, and almost directly parallel to the subject, but not quite. It did rest a bit lower in height, looking up every so slightly.

The Main Light

The main light used was the octagon soft box. I tried to double diffuse the light, but it made the image a bit too dark. You can see I ended up using just the soft box, with the small piece of aluminum foil to help lift some shadows on the opposite side of the frame.

The Snoot in the Back

Whereas smoke can be captured with light in different places, steam can only be captured when lit from behind. The snoot is used here to capture the steam coming off of the spaghetti.

The bit of harsh light you are seeing on the spaghetti on the left, is coming more from where the snoot light is falling on it. That is why I was trying to soften the light from the soft box more.

One of the important things to think about is to set one light at a time, and block off light where you can, so it doesn’t interfere with the other. Lack of space in that room allowed me to do so properly. If it had, I think the light on the spaghetti would not have been quite as blown out.

Shot on Canon 80D

60mm Macro Lens

ISO 100

F/10

SS: 1/200

Speedlight modified with the Octagon soft bow: 1/2 speed at 105mm zoom

Speedlight modified with snoot, strictly used to light steam: 1/8 speed at 105mm zoom