Menu Photography in Ho Chi Minh City: One Consistent Set for Print, QR and Delivery

Start with the menu list, not the camera

Before you shoot anything, export your current menu as a plain list with a dish code for each item. Use the same code everywhere: on the printed menu, in your point-of-sale system, in the QR menu and in the file name. A two-letter category prefix plus a number works well, for example PH01 for the first pho, RM03 for a rice dish, DR07 for a drink.

Shoot in that order, category by category, so the whole set shares one lighting setup and one background. If you shoot your bestsellers first and the rest later on a different table, the menu will look assembled from several restaurants. Batch shooting also makes the naming step mechanical: you finish a category, rename the files, move on.

Decide the crop before you start. Delivery listings and QR menus are mostly viewed on a phone in portrait, so a square 1:1 master is the safest base, with a 16:9 version for a website banner or a printed header. Frame each plate slightly loose in the square so the tighter delivery crop does not cut the rim of the bowl.

• Export the full menu list with a stable code per dish
• Group by category and shoot one category per session
• Shoot a 1:1 master, framed loose enough for tighter crops
• Keep the same plate, table surface and background for the whole batch

Use Ho Chi Minh City's daylight deliberately

Ho Chi Minh City sits close to the equator, so daylight hours barely move across the year. Around the June solstice you get about 12 h 38 min of daylight and the noon sun stands about 77 degrees above the horizon. Around the December solstice it is about 11 h 22 min and the noon sun is about 56 degrees. The practical consequence is that midday sun is high and hard in both seasons, and the usable window light comes earlier and later in the day.

As a working guide rather than a rule, treat the first two to three hours after sunrise and the last two to three before sunset as your best window-light slots. At those times the sun is low enough to come through a window at an angle instead of straight down, which gives soft modeling on the food. Between roughly late morning and mid-afternoon, keep the table out of direct sun and work with indirect light from the side.

In December the slightly shorter day and lower noon sun mean the good slots shift a little and the light stays softer for longer. In June the strong high sun means you should start earlier and stop earlier in the evening. Pick one slot, book it for the whole batch, and shoot the same slot every time you add dishes so new photos match the old ones.

• Shoot near a window with indirect light, table parallel to the glass
• Diffuse hard sun with a white curtain or a sheet of tracing paper
• Turn off ceiling fluorescents and colored signage light during the shoot
• Keep a fixed camera-to-plate distance, around 45 degrees above the plate for most dishes, straight overhead for bowls of noodles and soups

Set up one repeatable station

Photograph on a plain surface that contrasts with the food: a dark wood board for pale dishes, a light stone or linen surface for dark sauces and grilled items. Keep the same surface for a whole category so the delivery grid reads as a set.

Plate the dish the way it actually goes out. Delivery customers compare the photo with what arrives, and a styled portion that is larger than the real one creates complaints and refunds. Wipe the rim, remove stray herbs from the table, and check that the brightest part of the frame is the food, not a white napkin.

Shoot three frames per dish: one straight-on at plate level for height, one at roughly 45 degrees, and one overhead. That gives you options when a delivery tile or a printed menu needs a different shape, without reshooting later.

Name, sort and store the files

Rename files the moment the card comes out of the camera, using the dish code plus a version marker: PH01_v1.jpg, PH01_v2.jpg. Never overwrite an older version, because you may need to prove what the dish looked like when a customer complains, or roll back a change you regret.

Keep one folder per menu version, dated, with a subfolder for the edited set and one for the originals. Back the originals up off the phone or camera before you edit anything. A shared drive folder that the kitchen manager and the marketing person can both open prevents the situation where the printed menu and the delivery listing show different versions of the same dish.

When a dish changes, add a new version rather than editing the old file. The version number in the name tells you at a glance which photo is current and which listing still needs updating.

• Code + version in every file name, for example RM03_v2.jpg
• One dated folder per menu version, originals kept separately
• Back up originals before editing
• Log which channels have been updated and when

Keep photos in sync with menu changes

Set a monthly review: open the menu list next to the photo folder and check every code. Dishes that were removed should have their photos archived, not deleted, in case the dish returns seasonally. New dishes need a shoot slot in the next batch.

Delivery listings are the slowest to update, so treat them as the trigger. When a dish is added or its portion changes, update the delivery listing first, then the QR menu, then the printed card at the next reprint. That order keeps the most-seen version correct.

For sizing, this site does not publish pixel specifications for delivery platforms, so check the upload screen of each app you use for its current requirements and crop preview. FoodPhoto takes a real photo of your own dish and improves light, background and crop for menus, delivery apps and social while keeping the food as it is, and every photo comes as a kit of sizes covering a hero image, delivery-app sizes, Instagram formats and Google Business Profile. Use it for your own channels and still check each platform's upload screen, since no tool can guarantee approval by a platform.

Match the shoot to what you actually sell

A pho shop and a bakery need different setups. Broth-based bowls photograph best overhead with the garnish arranged in a ring, and they lose appeal if shot too early and left to sit, so shoot them last in each batch and quickly. Grilled and fried items read better at a low 30 to 45 degree angle where you can see texture and char.

Drinks and desserts need a cooler, brighter setup than hot food, and a separate background so they do not look like part of the main course grid. If your menu mixes Vietnamese, Chinese-Vietnamese and Korean dishes, keep the styling neutral and consistent across all of them rather than matching each cuisine's own visual style, or the delivery grid will look like three different restaurants.