Black background (Page 2): let me see if i understand this: i take a reading of the back ground and then drop for stops and when i flash it will give the dark background. How do you...

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

normanhall wrote:

Bruce H wrote:

another method would be to use flash. set the ambient light exposure for the background four stops under and the flash for your flower subject. the background will be underexposed and usually will come out black.

let me see if i understand this: i take a reading of the back ground and then drop for stops and when i flash it will give the dark background.

How do you set shutter speed for this 1/200th?

Yes...you can do this even with a white background...it will drop out completely.

If you have continous lighting just angle the lighting so that the light hits ONLY the subject and that will drop the ratio from your subject to the background....5 or more stops...and it will create a black background....

Gavin Hoey has a youtube video demonstrating this technique that is very informative...

Just google "Gavin Hoey grey background"

He takes a grey background and turns it black and then white according to how much light he puts on it.

BOB Loc: Texas

myts10 wrote:

I use black foam board.
You can look at my profile, My Photos. The White Iris is with black foam board.

Where is your white iris ??

RobertinRI Loc: Central Falls, RI, USA

If you are shooting flowers and use a green chroma key background, don't you risk confusing the green bits of the flowers with the background? Green chroma works with flesh tones because there is so little green there.

btw, a recent demo by some nice Apple folks showed that just about any shade of green will work, including the cheap remnant they had picked up the day before at a closeout fabric store, wrinkles and all.

normsImages wrote:

If you are using photoshop, use any solid color background and relplace that color in PS with black. This will give you the solid black you want. You can get a chroma key green backgorund paper for $15 (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/203848-REG/Savage_46_2612_Widetone_Seamless_Background_Paper.html) This would be your best bet. Any solid color will work you just have to spend a little more time selecting the back ground color.

Jim Plogger Loc: East Tennessee

I did a post on this issue about a week ago. You can see the thread at:

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-26562-1.html

I did some flower photography this past weekend using black felt cloth taped to a large piece of cardboard and it turned out great. If you would like to see one of the shots just let me know.

RAS

black velvet - a large enough piece to be a distance away from your subject and try to block your lights, however you can, from hitting the background

melphoto60

use a flag to block the flash from hitting the background

JohnnyRottenNJ Loc: Northern New Jersey

Use an incident light meter. That way you are measuring the light that falls onto your subject and it allows the black background to remain black. Remember for shooting outdoors, you have to overexpose snow by about a stop and a half to make it look "white" instead of a murky gray, and you have to underexpose anything black by the same amount to make it "black."

fishone0 Loc: Kingman AZ

when shooting flowers outside I use black foam board, when shooting in a light box I use black velvet.

coco1964 Loc: Winsted Mn

docrob wrote:

velvet

Ditto---little spendy, but it works better than anything I've tried. And for floral shots how much do you really need??

coco1964 Loc: Winsted Mn

jpintn wrote:

I did a post on this issue about a week ago. You can see the thread at:

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-26562-1.html

I did some flower photography this past weekend using black felt cloth taped to a large piece of cardboard and it turned out great. If you would like to see one of the shots just let me know.

Nice shots and a perfect example of how well felt works. I just like velvet because it's more plyable. For a small area like a flower maybe felt is the answer---I know it's cheaper and to drag my roll of velvet outside may be a pain in the butt. I believe next week I'm shooting my 1st still life which will be a floral scene so we'll see how that comes out.........

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

gledor42 wrote:

I have tried using several materials like (black cloth, black cardboard, black satin), hoping to get a deep and dark , black background for single stemmed flowers. No luck! Whats's the technique? How do you get that dark background?
Thanks!

I bought a piece of black velveteen at a fabric store that is similar to velvet but VERY cheap. The problem with using a green screen behind it is that the flower's stem is green and will get wiped out too.

stalwart Loc: Outskirts of Chicago

Bryan Petersons YouTube video on Using flash for Contrast, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEhaWtcdWdc provides another approach to obtain a black background.

janislewis Loc: New Mexico

normsImages wrote:

If you are using photoshop, use any solid color background and relplace that color in PS with black. This will give you the solid black you want. You can get a chroma key green backgorund paper for $15 (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/203848-REG/Savage_46_2612_Widetone_Seamless_Background_Paper.html) This would be your best bet. Any solid color will work you just have to spend a little more time selecting the back ground color.

The green background might not work so well photographing flowers since there will most likely be green in the stems and flowers.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

gledor42 wrote:

I have tried using several materials like (black cloth, black cardboard, black satin), hoping to get a deep and dark , black background for single stemmed flowers. No luck! Whats's the technique? How do you get that dark background?
Thanks!

Several have mentiond black velvet. That is the ticket, not just because it's black. The little hairs on it do not reflect light or show shadows. A friend of mine uses it and he is a top notch pro. He does any product shot you have ever seen of Jelly-Belly product. So it must work.
I did a session of portraits the other night and used no backdrop at all. I did them outdoors using strobes and two hotlights for hair lights. The nearst object was 20 feet away in the background and it looks completely black. I did not have a big enough black backdrop. Of course the shots did not go to the ground. If your flowers are not alive in a garden it night work for you.

gledor42 Loc: Folsom California

SharpShooter wrote:

quote=gledor42 I have tried using several materia... (show quote)