Lighting this shot...but with a white background

D

djs

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Daniel
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Hi all,

This is something I have struggled to light everytime.

Now I'm just using the photo on that link as an example so you can see the pose I'm talking about.(it's not my image)
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/200117875-001/Photographers-Choice
Yeh...that one where everyones heads are in a circle, lol.

I've tried this before on a white background.
You light the shot to expose the faces correctly, but then the background comes out as an un-even dirty grey which takes forever to get right in photoshop.
The way I've been doing it, is using a large starfish shape softbox above the faces (as much as possible) to evenly spread the light out.

Is there a trick to lighting this shot correctly so that the faces and the white background looks alright?

Most of the time I'm using a muslin backdrop, so I also get the creases in the fabric.

Be Interesting to hear what you're thoughts are.

Thanks

djs
 
The biggest problem is the lack of distance you've got seperate the heads from the white background in your shots. That's why in all the white background stuff with people stood up they are suitably in front of the background in order that the background can be lit seperately.
 
Only way I could think of doing this 'in camera' on a white background would be to have the people lay on a sheet of glass, underneath the sheet of glass you would need a large softbox (such as a lastolite hilight. Then meter to get a white background and balance the frontal lighting to give a correctly balanced exposure (preferebly using a ringflash or a number of lights evenly spaced arond the cameras position.

An much easier way would be to shoot the subjects against a chroma-key background and swap the colour in PP.
 
The complete answer to this is to backlight the background - a sheet of frosted acrylic, supported on a frame and lit from beneath, if you really do want a pure white background. But that isn't usually practicable for amateur photographers.

The next thing to try is to have a large light source but fairly distant. Large so that the lighting isn't too harsh, distant so that there is very little difference in the distance of the light travelled between the faces and the background.

Personally I hate wasting time trying to correct lighting faults on the computer, but this particular type of shot is easy enough, just make sure your subjects aren't wearing white and then use selective color>whites to adjust the whites only.

Creases on your muslin backdrop needn't be a problem. That's what masking tape was invented for:)
 
Kev M said:
The biggest problem is the lack of distance you've got seperting the heads from the white background in your shots. That's why in all the white background stuff with people stood up they are suitably in front of the background in order that the background can be lit seperately.
Click to expand...

Spot on :agree:

You can't light the floor to make it white if the subject is laid on it, without blowing your subjects out too - unless - you light it from below (which I'm pretty sure you can't do either without a huge sheet of perspex on ramps)

Soz :(

DD


b****r - way too slow :lol:
 
EdBray said:
Only way I could think of doing this 'in camera' on a white background would be to have the people lay on a sheet of glass, underneath the sheet of glass you would need a large softbox (such as a lastolite hilight. Then meter to get a white background and balance the frontal lighting to give a correctly balanced exposure (preferebly using a ringflash or a number of lights evenly spaced arond the cameras position.

An much easier way would be to shoot the subjects against a chroma-key background and swap the colour in PP.
Click to expand...

Yeh i see what you mean with the glass. Not sure I like the sound of the glass method though lol.

The problem with the chroma-key, is there would be a lot of green/blue reflection on the faces.

Hmm
 
Garry Edwards said:
The complete answer to this is to backlight the background - a sheet of frosted acrylic, supported on a frame and lit from beneath, if you really do want a pure white background. But that isn't usually practicable for amateur photographers.

The next thing to try is to have a large light source but fairly distant. Large so that the lighting isn't too harsh, distant so that there is very little difference in the distance of the light travelled between the faces and the background.

Personally I hate wasting time trying to correct lighting faults on the computer, but this particular type of shot is easy enough, just make sure your subjects aren't wearing white and then use selective color>whites to adjust the whites only.

Creases on your muslin backdrop needn't be a problem. That's what masking tape was invented for:)
Click to expand...

I'm not going to be able to pull off the perspex/glass method, so I'll try the alternative
I'll give this a go next time.
I do need to buy another roll of tape, comes in handy.

I didn't know about the selective colour>whites. Will give that a go too
 
Oo, 1 more thing.
It's not related to the original question.

But say for example, I was to light the white background evenly, and some parts of the background were a bit darker...

I'd expect the 'lesser lit' areas to be grey....but alot of the time they appear a dirty purple colour.

Does anyone know why this might happen?
My laptop is calibrated so it's not the LCD.

Thanks
 
White balance maybe:shrug:
 
Are you useing Auto white balance?
 
No everything is always on manual. The white balance is fine.


Could it be that once the RAW files are loaded, they are converted to 8bit? And so the colours may change a little?
 
Colour cast from the light?
 
what about shooting the models seperate, say on a toughned glass table with a softbox or light source underneath then combining the layers
 
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