White Background nightmare

[Daz the novice]

Have just purchased a white vinyl background, and was really lookin forward to trying it out, set up my gear as I would normally do to take someones portrait but instead of a traditional coloured back ground I used my new white one , beside me i had two bowens lights complete with umberellas - shootin on F11 as per my flash meter was tellin me - at 125th - iso 160 but guess what the background was grey in the photos, can anyone give this beginner any help with regards to lighting this back drop up to look white, thought this was going to be easy!!:bang:

 

[DiddyDave]

It is easy - you're doing it wrong !!!

The background needs to be overexposed compared to your subject, so if the background is reading f11 then your subject should be lit to f8 or a bit less



DD

 

[cyclone]

To expand on that a little...
It's very difficult to do the pure white BG thing with 2 lights, you really need to light the BG and subject separately.
There are ways around it but the easiest way is to use 3 or more lights.

 

[hoverlloyd]

Have a read of this... there are 7 artitcles detailing everything you need to know!

http://www.zarias.com/?p=71

I have just been doing some white backdrop shooting... using two 200W flash heads on the backdrop with barn doors to control it..

And then a single flash up front with a brolly and reflector...

Gives you this:

 

[rpcrowe]

http://www.prophotolife.com/2008/06/26/quick-video-3-studio-setup-for-a-large-white-background/

 

[Marvin d martian]

LOL, I'd trust the profotolife one if I could blow £10k on kit. Zack does his with minimal kit and still gets fantastic results.

 

[NeilG40]

LOL, I'd trust the profotolife one if I could blow £10k on kit. Zack does his with minimal kit and still gets fantastic results.

Quite a bit less than £10k:-

"We ended up going with a 10 foot wide roll of discounted vinyl flooring that we’ve flipped upside down and painted white. It’s proven cost-effective and durable."

 

[Marvin d martian]

I was not realy talking about the background, more the 3000w/s packs and 8' octabox etc. Cyc walls are resonably cheap to construct.
Mart.

 

[NeilG40]

I was not realy talking about the background, more the 3000w/s packs and 8' octabox etc. Cyc walls are resonably cheap to construct.
Mart.

Yeah sorry I re-read your post just after posting mine and would have deleted mine but as far as I can see it's not possible.