Lighting a white background.

bass_junkie83

bass_junkie83

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I'm sure this has been covered to death, but my searching is bringing back no useful results.

I have just received my lencarta smartflash 200w 3 head set and i have been having a bit of a play.
I'm not the biggest fan of white backgrounds, but at the moment it's all i have so i have to work with it.

I understand the basic principle of lighting a white background, but in practice i am finding it difficult.
I am using a single flash unit with the background reflector but i only seem to be able to light up an area large enough for a head shot. I was expecting it to be an issue for groups and am prepared to have to use more lights in that case, but i was hoping a single light would be enough for a single model.

With a head and shoulders shot i start to get a bit of grey creeping into the background so a full body shot is looking out of the question.

Can anyone offer any advice or something i may have over looked?

I'll add some example shots this evening when i get in.
 
I've not tried it myself but looking at the dvd i have got you need to put a seperate light on the background. You could do this from the side or from behind the subject.
s412tc.jpg


Not my diagram got it from another forum.
 
Kapa the only problem with that picture is your gonna get half the softbox in the shot :p :D

If you have 3 strobes then, put 2 on the background and one key light on your subject. Your background light(s) should be a higher power then your key light, normally two stops brighter, you can get that with a light meter, its hit and miss if you haven't got one.
 
Lke i said not my diagram i would proberbly put the box to the right and a reflector to the lefs to add detail to the other side of the face. I think they thought it was one of the revelusioary new softboxes that are only visable from one side so you can shoot straight through it.:p
 
How big a back ground. mine is 9ft vinyl.
2 x 500 Bowens heads with tilted chrome brolly at 1 stop over exposed to subject.

In the front 2x 500heads with 1metre soft boxes rated at F 11 or F 16 or what ever you like.

Front lights are not on extended stands. just feet spread. The large soft boxes reach the floor. so take out a lot of post work.
 
bass_junkie83 said:
I'm sure this has been covered to death, but my searching is bringing back no useful results.

I have just received my lencarta smartflash 200w 3 head set and i have been having a bit of a play.
I'm not the biggest fan of white backgrounds, but at the moment it's all i have so i have to work with it.

I understand the basic principle of lighting a white background, but in practice i am finding it difficult.
I am using a single flash unit with the background reflector but i only seem to be able to light up an area large enough for a head shot. I was expecting it to be an issue for groups and am prepared to have to use more lights in that case, but i was hoping a single light would be enough for a single model.

With a head and shoulders shot i start to get a bit of grey creeping into the background so a full body shot is looking out of the question.

Can anyone offer any advice or something i may have over looked?

I'll add some example shots this evening when i get in.
Click to expand...

The whole idea of the background reflector is that it lights the background much more evenly than any other kind of modifier can, it should do the job without any 'bit of grey' creeping in - so my question is, is it far enough away from the background to light all of the background as seen by the camera?

Don't light the background 2 stops brighter unless you have an enormous amount of space between subject and background. Use the minimum amount of overexposure possible, a half stop will be fine..
 
Cheers for the responses guys.
I don't have a light meter yet, so for now i'm using the suck it and see method.

I think you could be on to something Garry, i did have everything pretty close and on top of each other, maybe i need to give everything some more space.

Anyway, here are the first images which i said i would put up.

This one was pretty good, just had to fill in a tiny bit of white down at the bottom right.
Image00001_006.jpg


And these are a couple where it really didn't go quite to plan.
Image00003_005.jpg


Image00002_005.jpg
 
First one is pretty good, as the others they just need a little bit of editing, i had 2 minute go at the second one,its not great but it just shows what a little edit can do. I know the hairs all gone out but its mainly just for the background to show you.

1z3uyix.jpg
 
I didn't think i would have been able have got anything like that from the original, could you give me a little hint as to what you did?

I really need to sort out some more up to date editing software, i am still on photoshop 6.0 and trying to fine guides that still relate isn't always easy.
 
Two minutes in Photoshop can clean them up a bit

jj8p3n.jpg
 
Beat me to it :)

119725082.jpg


Basically I did a levels adjust to blow the BG and then used the brush tool to bring the girl back to normal
And then it was a tweak of saturation, contrast and levels to the image
 
Good work lads, i have been trying myself but i think there is more to it than what i am doing, mine seems to go to pot when it comes to the edge detail.
 
I don't use selections, just different sizes of brush normally with hardness set pretty low. with a bit of practice I find it pretty quick and, on a full size image, accurate
 
My one above was done with a small tweak of the levels and the dodge tool, really simple.
 
If you're using a studio setup you really don't want to have to do any PP to sort the background. Concentrate on getting the lighting right rather than honing your PP skills to fix the problem.
I don't necessarily agree with Gary that blowing the BG out with 1 or 2 stops overexposure is a bad thing, however, you really need to control the lightspill with flags placed between the BG lights and the subject to maintain the definition of the subject outline. 1 BG light is difficult to control as you will get natural light gradient. You may be better off (as suggested earlier) by using 2 lights for BG from either side and then lighting the subject with a single light and reflector. In time you can buy another light and have a 4 light setup.
 
Oh of course, i totally agree.
I want to get it right in camera and that is my main aim, but being able to correct in photoshop afterwards is still worth knowing for the occasions it doesn't work first time.
 
bass_junkie83 said:
Oh of course, i totally agree.
I want to get it right in camera and that is my main aim, but being able to correct in photoshop afterwards is still worth knowing for the occasions it doesn't work first time.
Click to expand...

This is how I approached it. I learned the basics of post processing so that I knew I could at least save a shot, then with each shoot this has cut right down to the point now where the background needs no editing. My shots are far from perfect but I only have two heads so I'm limited. However, on here you have lighting experts and photographers judging your work, the man on the street who's child you've just shot will 9 times out of 10 love them because they're not as critical and like to see those sort of shots of their kids.
 
bass_junkie83 said:
Oh of course, i totally agree.
I want to get it right in camera and that is my main aim, but being able to correct in photoshop afterwards is still worth knowing for the occasions it doesn't work first time.
Click to expand...

Dman said:
This is how I approached it. I learned the basics of post processing so that I knew I could at least save a shot, then with each shoot this has cut right down to the point now where the background needs no editing. My shots are far from perfect but I only have two heads so I'm limited. However, on here you have lighting experts and photographers judging your work, the man on the street who's child you've just shot will 9 times out of 10 love them because they're not as critical and like to see those sort of shots of their kids.
Click to expand...

Granted... My post may have been worded badly to sound a little pedantic. Recovery is always a good skill to hone as things will sometimes not go to plan, but getting it right in the shot saves time and hassle is what I was getting at :)
 
neo2810 said:
Granted... My post may have been worded badly to sound a little pedantic. Recovery is always a good skill to hone as things will sometimes not go to plan, but getting it right in the shot saves time and hassle is what I was getting at :)
Click to expand...

Indeed, and to be fair learning how to get it right has literally saved me hours of processing time.
 
Agree with the others that a head and shoulders shot like this shouldn't need any pp'ing.
Using my hilite I'd be happy with one light on the bg set to f16 and then use f11 for the camera setting.
Again as said though the ability to rescue an image does come in handy!
 
Lighting up a white background appears to be a simple thing to do. HOWEVER, it's not as simple as it looks!!!!

Looking at your shots, it appears that there is little separation between subject and backdrop. I think I'd try spacing them out. DOF will then become your natural friend.
 
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