White background advice_yawn I know _sorry

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cargo

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Gary
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As title I do get that you peeps get this all the time and I get the idea but have never done a white background thing before. That said I took some photos on Friday of some Chicks "yes I do mean Chickens" :-)
These were being hatched/incubated at my Nieces home (school holidays fun for her) before going back to there real farm home. I did take a few photos last year when she did this and I did those on a black background which is easier.Those chicks were the regular fluffy yellow ones ! Anyway I thought I would try to do them on white.
I understood that you need to light the white and then light the subject .I should have taken a set up photo but I didnt. I did have this playing about wide angle image though that shows most of it. There is a 60x60 soft box to camera left lighting the chick.

I only use speedlights. So the background light is bare I used the flag to try and reduce flare I didnt have a longer piece of white foam core to get more distance from the background. Allthough I got images I was only managing to get a small section of the background white around the chick, which I knew I could get away with (as I had seen a video that made that point clear) and then sort in post but I was wanting to know if I aproached this right ? Should I have placed the speedlights differently of not used the rear one bare that said I only have softboxes as modifiers?

Wide image

IMG_3566cookie.jpg


Results Image Thread


Gaz
 
Graham W said:
I understand that the principle is that you light the background with two lights. The light to the right illuminates the left side of the background and and the the light to the left the right side.
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As above, but with this type of shot the background is also the floor, so in a perfect world you need to light this too, which requires an additional light, which is normally off to one side a bit, behind, pointing at the floor and honeycombed to prevent lens flare. It can be done without this extra light, in post processing, and PP is the easiest/simplest answer unless there are a lot of shots to process.

As for the lights on the background, they should only overexpose the background very slightly, and then the background is lightened further in PP - if you overexpose too much then the unwanted reflected light will destroy the edge detail, reduce contrast and cause lens flare.

I take it that the ones you took last year were memorial photos? The fluffy yellow chicks are males and males have a hard life, as we know:) male chickens also have a very short life...
 
Graham W said:
I understand that the principle is that you light the background with two lights. The light to the right illuminates the left side of the background and and the the light to the left the right side.
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Thanks Graham. So on the right track justanother speedlight to add.
Garry Edwards said:
I take it that the ones you took last year were memorial photos?
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Hi Garry. Thanks for the lighting info that all makes sense and apart from not lighting the other side it seems I did ok. No the chicks from last year are alive and well. The lady that owns them as a small holding and would never kill/eat any of her livestock.I take your word for it that they were males as I have no idea. The ones I took photos of this year were different breeds apparently.

Gaz
 
We're talking about a rather small setup/area here without much distances/separation.

I think I would have attempted to do most of it with just the main light/softbox. Then I would only add the BG light as needed *if* the softbox was falling off too quick. And with only one I probably would have used it from above and farther (or w-a screen) for more spread, maybe let it catch the top of them as bit of rim light.

Basically, you have a small subject close to the BG, and you have a relatively large light source for the subject size. I think you could place the softbox at ~ 3 ft while retaining a nice level of softness/wrap, and have negligible falloff on the BG/Floor, as long as you kept them towards the back. Or you could go a bit "harder" with the lighting for less falloff, which will also tend to make the finer details stand out more (but create stronger shadows on the floor).

Anyway, I think your results came out quite nice... if anything, a couple might have a bit too much light on the BG (hard to say after edits).
 
sk66 said:
Anyway, I think your results came out quite nice... if anything, a couple might have a bit too much light on the BG (hard to say after edits).
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Thanks Steven. Your reply is a great help. I was thinking the light was maybe too soft yet you wouldnt want the little fluffy things to seem to hard/rough if you get what I mean. I will resize an unedited one of those I posted so you can see what the light was like.


Gaz
 
sk66 said:
(hard to say after edits
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Back again. These were before edits. So maybe you could advise. I most likely pushed the whites to much in post as I have not done it before and just made the value 255 thinking that was the thing to do ?
Included 3 from the post as I may have moved the light a touch here and there whilst taking them.

Gaz

IMG_3587chick+1.jpg

2
IMG_3584chick+1.jpg

3
IMG_3571chick+1.jpg
 
You're a little underexposed on the bird/floor (~ .5), and no idea how far over on the BG but I'd guess ~ 1stop. Based upon the falloff I'm seeing across the BG, I think if you had just exposed correctly (or a little right) the BG would have been very close, if not white w/o the second light. And then, any little bit of BG light required could be added with much less concern of flare/bloom.

If the BG *is* white, then it only needs to be properly lit and exposed *as* white... there is no need to blow it out, that only causes problems (but white "meters" as overexposure, by different amounts with different methods).

I generally set whites at 245 unless it's a specular, or if it's going to be displayed against white.
 
sk66 said:
I generally set whites at 245 unless it's a specular, or if it's going to be displayed against white.
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Fabulous info Steven thats a great help. I did wonder when blowing the background out in post, as it did seem to glare out at me, my gut was saying I prefered it less white but in the end thought what do I know and followed what I read was the thing to do.

Thanks again.

Gaz

Ps: So white is not 255 in reality ? If so blown out is somewhat past white. As I am typing this it seems daft and obvious as a white dress would be devoid of texture at 255 ?
 
cargo said:
Fabulous info Steven thats a great help. I did wonder when blowing the background out in post, as it did seem to glare out at me, my gut was saying I prefered it less white but in the end thought what do I know and followed what I read was the thing to do.

Thanks again.

Gaz

Ps: So white is not 255 in reality ? If so blown out is somewhat past white. As I am typing this it seems daft and obvious as a white dress would be devoid of texture at 255 ?
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White is 255, but most white we see isn't anywhere near that. In context we can see a 'white' object in the shade that's nearly black.
 
Hi Mike. Bar the plexi I did watch this video and followed is post wflow. That said by all accounts I need not have blown the whites out as he described.
I will keep an eye out for a small piece of plexi.
Thanks for the link.
Gaz
 
Hi Gareth. Yep it all helps. Your example shows another way to do it therefore saves me the time trying and wondering what a bounced flash would look like.

Thanks for the time taken to post.

Gaz
 
Lez325 said:
Here's one I shot- weeks before any of yours
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Nice job Lez ! Works a treat here :-) Really nice image but for the subjects I was photographing I wanted brighter white background.

Gaz
 
cargo said:
Nice job Lez ! Works a treat here :) Really nice image but for the subjects I was photographing I wanted brighter white background.

Gaz
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I was sort of taking the Mick - Gary, you know the old Chicken before the Egg debate :p

Les :)
 
Lez325 said:
I was sort of taking the Mick - Gary, you know the old Chicken before the Egg debate :p

Les :)
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Yes I did chuckle at first then got all serious silly me :)
 
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