How do I go about filming ChefStep style videos?

April 1, 2015 9:30 PM

I'm interested in making cooking videos in the same esthetic as ChefSteps. How would someone without professional videography experience going about replicating the "glowy" look-and-feel? Understanding that these properties are a combination of technique and equipment, what would one need to procure to achieve these results? Would an iPhone 6 be sufficient to replicate say, 80% of the way?
posted by angermanagement to Technology (4 answers total)

Best answer: The biggest thing ChefSteps has going for it is light. They're working in a space with plenty of natural light and that's going to be the easiest way for you to get the look.

If you can work in front of big windows during the day that will be best. What you want is wide, even light. That means lots of light but ideally not direct light — if the sun is coming in directly you'll get too much contrast between the brightest bits and everything else.

You will probably also need to work on bouncing that light. If you're talking to camera and the window is to your right, your left side will be super dark. So you need some way to bounce the window light back and fill in the dark parts. The easiest way is with a white wall or, failing that, a temporary white wall made out of (white) butcher paper. If you've got that nice big window light source you want to maximize it by bouncing it around your space as much as possible.

The equipment is secondary. The only thing the iPhone won't let you get is the out-of-focus background for the close shots. For that you'll need a camera with a real lens. You can get it with a DSLR but also with a decent point-and-shoot.
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:26 PM on April 1, 2015

Best answer: In addition to the light, I think the other significant, consistent element is that they shoot with a shallow depth of field (DOF) meaning the background is blurred. Your iPhone will do this.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:55 AM on April 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: That means lots of light but ideally not direct light — if the sun is coming in directly you'll get too much contrast between the brightest bits and everything else.

Just to add to that, I've seen the ChefSteps office and it's actually a ground level/English basement office, so they are indeed working with some indirect light that they're bouncing into the office via having lots of metal and white in their space.

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus cameras have a fixed lens aperture of f2.2 and a fixed focal length of lens at 4.15mm (approximately a 30mm lens)

And yep, these specs will get you the shallow depth of field you want. Off the top of my head, I'd say sit your phone about 2-3 feet from your subject.
posted by capricorn at 6:48 AM on April 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I agree that an iPhone might just be able to pull this off. But it's probably easier with a small midrange digital camera like a Canon S110 (which is selling for $220 or so now.) Better aperture, bigger sensor, and optical image-stabilization.
posted by smackfu at 8:36 AM on April 2, 2015 [1 favorite]