Lighting Popular White Backgrounds For Studio Shoots
The most popular backgrounds for indoor portrait photography is a solid bright white or light color background . The absolute toughest aspects to using a white background is when you have the topic is also wearing white or is holding a white product, such as platinum wedding bands. As the shutter-bug you have to separate the white subject from the white background and not tell them they cant wear their choice of clothing. Many photographers appear to never get the separation correct and if you look at adverts in several magazines you will see an absence of detail where the white color wash together .
Many Say you must have lots of distance so that there is not any reflection from the background to the subject. Fine if you’ve got the room but depending on your camera adjustment and lens you may have issues even with 12 feet of space between the white background and subject. This reflection is sometimes called spill, wrap or flair depending on where it comes from. Irrespective of what you call it photographers want to avoid it unless you are going for a strange look. What I do is light the white fabric or paper from behind my subject. I try to permit about 7-9 feet so I have room for my lights. I use from three to 5 lights. When using 4 lights 2 are on each side and if required the fifth in the middle hidden from the camera. This is useful for extra wide backgrounds. When using three I have one on each side and one behind the model concealed from sight. I’ve used soft boxes and umbrellas with same results. If using an umbrella be sure to have the black liner attached to prevent spill. A black poster can also be used if you are feeling more light blockage is needed.
Using a light meter placed in front of the model slightly under her jaw take a reading. Point the meter toward the camera and fire all of the lights . If the reading is F11 and you are OK with that setting then move the light meter to behind the model facing the background. Take a reading of the flash and it should be 1 stop under. No more and no less as one is all that is required for detail seperation. You can move the model closer or further away for straightforward adjustment or adjust every one of the background lights. At one stop or F8 in this sample you would have total separation of the white background and the white clothing worn by the model being photographed. Whatever setting you want for your subject just make sure the background reading is one under.
A good photographer should be able to picture any color of clothing with any background or light conditions. If you book a photo shoot and your portrait photographer tells you not to wear white because it is hard to snap i suggest you look for a new photographer. All that statement shows is a lack of knowledge about photography lighting. In addition if you require more information on marketing photography please follow this marketing photography link.
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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 30th, 2010 at 3:28 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.