More than Foodstagram: Beautifully Taken Food Shots Using the Huawei P9

These days, it’s not just about having a significant number of followers on Instagram – your feed now also has to be well curated and stylized enough to look like a pretty portfolio. Being a food blogger, a huge chunk of the pictures on my IG feed are food shots, and given the fact that I’ve received several comments saying my pictures make them drool, I can pretty much say that I’m at least doing a decent job in taking these pictures.

Trust me, taking these pictures isn’t as easy as it looks! A lot of factors have to be considered – like lighting, the angle, the background – sometimes the food already gets cold just because it takes me too long to find the perfect shot (good thing my friends are patient and understanding enough to let me do what I do..lol).

The challenge is that I don’t always bring my mirrorless camera with me - that and the fact that not all restaurants have Foodstagram-friendly lighting. In situations such as these, I rely on my trusty smartphone in taking food shots. I’ve recently been using the Huawei P9, and I can confidently say that it levels up my IG game. Here are some of the food shots I took with the Huawei P9.

Each one’s “Instagrammable” don’t you think? The primary reason why pictures taken with the Huawei P9 have an impressive quality, is the fact that it has not just one, but two special cameras working together at the back of the phone.  These cameras are co-designed by Leica, so you can really tell that Huawei is serious about the quality of pictures taken using the P9.

Allow me to share with you a few tips on taking beautifully taken food shots using the Huawei P9:

Focus on Prominent Elements of the Food

In every shot, the background is just as important as the subject, but with food shots, you also don’t want the viewer to get distracted by having too much going on in the background. You want the viewer’s attention to stay on the food, so make sure that you focus on prominent elements in the subject.

You can use the Bokeh or blurring effect of the Huawei P9 to achieve the focus that you need. When on the camera app, simply click on the icon that looks like a lens on the upper-left tray. Then click on the subject that you want to focus on before taking the picture. The Bokeh feature works best in shooting subjects within 2 meters from you.

Find a Good Lighting

Natural light works best for food shots, which is why at restaurants, I prefer sitting near the windows where I can get better lighting for my pictures. However, not all restos have good lighting, and what about when you have to take pictures at night?

This picture was taken inside the restaurant using the Huawei P9. No editing was done on the brightness of the picture.

Huawei takes pride in the fact that the P9’s cameras work wonders even in low-light settings. The Leica cameras let in a lot of light (I believe the mochorome lens bring in a lot more light that the RGB one) – working together to produce sharp pictures even in darker settings.

Go Pro

The advantage of DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, is that you can manually adjust the settings such as the aperture and shutter speed. Not a lot of phones can do this, but the Huawei P9 definitely can.

There’s a tray just right above the camera shutter button that you can swipe up to reveal the Pro Mode. From here you can manually adjust the shutter speed, ISO, exposure, focus, white balance, among others. When done properly, your food shot can have a quality similar to professionally taken pictures! This should be pretty helpful when your taking pictures of food that has some “motion” in them – like chocolate melting out of dessert, steam coming out of a hot pot, or oil bubbling up in the grill.

There’s a whole lot more to taking Insta-worthy food shots, but for those who aren’t professional photographers like me, it helps to have a smartphone that makes it easier for you to take beautiful pictures. 

Ever since I’ve had the Huawei P9, I’ve been using it to take food shots and build up my Foodstagram. If you’re like me who have already made taking pictures a part of my ritual before meals, but can’t be bothered bringing a DSLR all the time, you may want to give the Huawei P9 a shot (pun intended).