Las Vegas Restaurant Photography: A Local Shooting and Sizing Guide

Why Las Vegas light is its own problem

At the June solstice Las Vegas gets about 14 h 28 min of daylight and the noon sun sits about 77 degrees above the horizon. That is nearly overhead light: it drops hard shadows straight down and blows out anything white near a window, so midday is the worst time to shoot glossy plates or pale sauces. Around the December solstice you get about 9 h 32 min and the noon sun is only about 30 degrees up, so low winter light rakes across the room and reaches deep into the dining area, which is better for food but can throw long shadows from tableware.

The practical answer is to shoot when the sun is low and indirect, and to control the window rather than the room. A sheer curtain, a white foam board opposite the window as a fill, and a table placed about 1 m back from the glass will do more for a dish photo than any camera upgrade.

A seasonal window-light schedule

Use the sun angle to pick your shooting hours. In summer, the usable window is early morning and late afternoon; in winter, the middle of the day is workable because the sun stays low. These are starting points, not rules, and a north-facing window will behave differently from a west-facing one.

• June to August: shoot 7 to 9 a.m. or after 6 p.m. Avoid 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. near windows; the 77-degree noon sun creates hard shadows and glare.
• March, April, September, October: mid-morning and mid-afternoon give softer, angled light; check the window for direct sun patches and move the table out of them.
• November to February: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. works well because the noon sun is only about 30 degrees up and light reaches further into the room.
• Any season: turn off overhead tungsten and colored accent lighting, or the photo will pick up a mixed color cast that is hard to fix later.
• Shoot each dish on the same table and background so your delivery menu looks consistent when items are viewed side by side.

Shooting dishes for delivery apps

Delivery app thumbnails are small, so the dish has to read at a glance. Use a 45-degree angle for most plates and a straight-down 90-degree top-down for bowls, pizzas and shared platters. Fill the frame: the food should take up most of the image, with little empty tabletop. Keep the background plain, wipe rims, and remove clutter like napkins, phones and condiment bottles.

Shoot in the largest size your phone allows and do not crop tightly in camera. You will need room to produce a square 1:1 crop for app tiles and a 16:9 or 4:5 version for your own channels. This site has spec pages for Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub and BentoBox in the United States, so check those before you export. Where a platform does not publish pixel specs, check the upload screen in the merchant dashboard for its current requirements.

Calories, accuracy and the photo

In the United States, restaurant chains with 20 or more locations must show calorie counts for standard menu items, and FDA guidance covers online menus as well as menu boards. A photo must match the item the calories describe. That means no swapped garnishes, no extra sides added for the shot, and no reusing a photo of a similar dish from another menu line.

If you operate a smaller independent restaurant, accuracy still protects you: customers compare the photo to what arrives. Shoot the dish exactly as it is plated for service, with the portion size you actually send out. For menus in English and Spanish, shoot once and reuse the same image across both language versions so the item looks identical.

One photo, many sizes

A single dish shoot should produce a set of files, not one. Plan for a hero image for your website, a square 1:1 for app tiles and Instagram grid posts, a 4:5 vertical for Instagram feed, a 9:16 vertical for Stories and Reels covers, and a wider 16:9 crop for Google Business Profile and website banners. Keep the dish centered enough that every crop still shows the whole plate.

Name files clearly by dish and size so your menu manager can find them, and keep a plain-background version for printed menus where ink and paper reduce contrast. If you use FoodPhoto, it 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. It cannot guarantee approval by any platform.

Where each photo goes

Google Business Profile shows photos in a grid and a cover image, so pick a bright, simple hero shot of a signature dish and update it when the menu changes. Your website menu needs consistent crops so the page loads fast and the items line up. Printed menus need higher contrast and simpler backgrounds because paper and ink flatten detail. QR menus should use the same square crops as your website so the mobile view stays sharp.

For social, shoot one or two extra frames per dish: a close texture shot and a wider table scene. Those extras give you weeks of posts without reshooting, and they keep your delivery app photos and your social photos from looking identical.