I usually use a longer lens for food photography. Like doing portraits, they are supposed to give a more pleasing image than a wide angle. Like anything else with a wide angle, you need to get in close, and watch the distortion. Backgrounds are more important due to the extra depth of field. Composition is composition, regardless of subject or lens choice.
The top photo needed the extra depth to make this image work. The chip poised halfway between savory sauce and anticipating palate. A longer lens would have thrown the bowl a bit more out of focus, plus I could not have held the chip and shot the picture this close with much of anything else. Wider than 28mm would have been too wide.
The bottom photo really illustrates my life-time love affair with a good wide angle. You can get in close, use the exaggerated perspective to put emphasis on one part of the photo. In this case your eye goes to the taco ingredients while you still take in the overall textures, get a good look at the burrito and the rice.
Your focal point will almost always be an element that is nearest the camera, you have to slide around til you get it where you want it. Shapes and lines in the image can help draw the viewers eye. I guess that years of telling a story with one photo for a newspaper have led me to see this way.
And again I must say that a good 28mmf2.8 is a great addition to your gear. It is fast, focuses really close, and is very lightweight. A great one lens to have on when you want to travel light. Just remember, you have to get really tight most of the time.
But what image can't be made better by just getting a little closer?
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