making a black background

starky987 · February 22, 2008

***THIS IS NOT MY PICTURE***

I want to know how to create effects like this where the entire background is completely black and just the part of the image I want is visible. Any help would be appreciated.

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/photos/203053924_GyaJK-M-1.jpg

zacker · February 22, 2008

looks like the Photog just used the light of the fire to light things up... prolly used a faster shutter speed to keep ambient light down to a minimum..

Just like using a flash. put your cam in AV mode about f8 and your cam should now be shooting at 1/250, f8.. this will light up your subject and black out the bg!

examples..

taken outside on a nice summer day.. just my flash and 30D set to AV about f11 - 16 there abouts.

starky987 · February 22, 2008

i dont understand how that works. why doesn't the light from being outside light up everything in the background? what's the purpose of using your flash when everything behind it is lit up by the sunlight? sorry if these are dumb questions.

zacker · February 22, 2008

because at f8 or higher and a shutter speed of 1/250, the sensor isnt exposed to the light for very long..lol not dumb, you just have never done it before is all.. try it, in a well lit room, shoot an object (but make sure its not too close to a wall or other objects) and shoot it at f11, 1/250.. youll see how it works. the Aperture (f stop) will controll how much flash lighting get to the sensor and the shutter speed wil control how much ambient (room, sun, etc) gets in.

starky987 · February 22, 2008

thanks!

pathfinder · February 22, 2008

Assuming this was all done in camera, rather than in post processing, means this post belongs in the Technique thread. I will move it thusly.

Starky,

Driving backgrounds to black is frequently done by using flash that is significantly brighter ( ~1-3 stops ) than ambient. Very easy to do with macros as described above. Anytime you under expose the sensor, even in bright sunlight, you will get a very black image.

I suspect a little painting with a soft black brush may have been used in Photoshop as well to tidy up. That is just 'window painting'.

Posting pictures that you are not the owner of is frowned on by most photographers. A link to the original is considered more appropriate, Starky. Thus, I have edited the original post so that the link is shown but not the image.

schmoo · February 22, 2008

Hi Starky, and these are all perfectly good questions!

That is my photo, and I can tell you right up front that I am no lighting wizard. I hadn't planned the shot, but I did end up doing a little more PP than I might have originally intended, but not much. Most of the work was done while shooting.

It was full dark outside, and we were set up in the driveway (to prevent wildfires

) with nothing particularly interesting in the background. Trees, my fence, lawn, etc. The light you see is indeed just the light generated by the fire. I was shooting at ISO 1600 in burst mode with relatively fast shutter speed to stop the motion, though timing it with the fireball took many tries.

In post processing all I did was correct for a slight tilt and some curves adjustments. The background was plenty dark enough all on it's own. I also overlapped 3 separate fireballs to get enough detail in the flames (much of it was blown out.)

This was way more detailed than I'm sure you wanted. In short it was exactly as Pathfinder said: expose for the foreground to dim the background. Good luck!

LiquidAir · February 22, 2008

Thats a great shot, schmoo. I have loved it since I first saw it.

There are a number of ways to get a black background, but the easiest is to put your light source much closer to your subject than it is to the background to take advantage of falloff. Every doulbing in distance results in two stops less light. In schmoo's shot the fireball is maybe 3 feet from the fire breather. If the background was, say 12 feet away (prudent given what he was doing) then the light will be 4 stops darker in the background. If the background is somewhat dark to begin with, then four stops difference is plenty to drive it to below the sensors threshold of sensitivity.

bham · February 26, 2008

Everyone mentioned the f stop and shutter speed, but also using a low ISO (100 or 200) that is less sensitive to light is more likely to help everything immediately behind the subject go black, especially when using a flash. Also increasing the distance from anything in the background and the subject obviously will help.

Slinky0390 · February 26, 2008

I just tried this out, and with my 30d's on camera flash, you can only have a maximum shutter speed of 250. Even with the lens at the smallest aperture, the background was not dark enough.

LiquidAir · February 26, 2008

Slinky0390 wrote:

I just tried this out, and with my 30d's on camera flash, you can only have a maximum shutter speed of 250. Even with the lens at the smallest aperture, the background was not dark enough.

Typically if you are shooting indoors with a flash, and ISO of 100 and a shutter of 1/250, all the light you see in the photo is from your flash because the ambient is too dark to register. An easy way to test this is to keep the exposure the same and turn the flash off; if the frame goes black then the ambient is irrelevant. If setup passes that test and your background is not dark enough, then you need to control spill from your flash with a snoot or gobos.

Slinky0390 · February 27, 2008

LiquidAir wrote:

Typically if you are shooting indoors with a flash, and ISO of 100 and a shutter of 1/250, all the light you see in the photo is from your flash because the ambient is too dark to register. An easy way to test this is to keep the exposure the same and turn the flash off; if the frame goes black then the ambient is irrelevant. If setup passes that test and your background is not dark enough, then you need to control spill from your flash with a snoot or gobos.

Ah! I had my iso on 1600 from the last time I used my camera and forgot to set it to 100. The flash does spill a bit, but its on camera so its junk to begin with. It'll have to do until I get my speedlight.

starky987 · February 27, 2008

So I've given it a try and am just not having any real success. My camera will only allow me to shoot at 1/200 with the flash, not sure if thats causing any of my problems or not. Second is that I'm just lighting up too much of the background, I can't get a completely or even close to completely dark background. My images appear as if they were just taken as darker images, not blacked out. You mentioned something to use with my flash to help that out but I dont know what that is, and I'm not sure why I would need that if other people don't need it for themselves. Shouldn't I be able to do the same thing with my camera without purchasing extras? THanks for all the help, I appreciate it.

LiquidAir · February 27, 2008

starky987 wrote:

So I've given it a try and am just not having any real success. My camera will only allow me to shoot at 1/200 with the flash, not sure if thats causing any of my problems or not. Second is that I'm just lighting up too much of the background, I can't get a completely or even close to completely dark background. My images appear as if they were just taken as darker images, not blacked out. You mentioned something to use with my flash to help that out but I dont know what that is, and I'm not sure why I would need that if other people don't need it for themselves. Shouldn't I be able to do the same thing with my camera without purchasing extras? THanks for all the help, I appreciate it.

If you are using the flash on your camera you are going to have a really rough time getting a dead black background. The most reliable way is going to be shooting outdoors at night. With off camera flash it gets much easier because you can point the flash away from the background limiting spill I'll often place the flash slightly behind my subject; combining direction and a snoot or gobo to control spill as in this shot:

The strong shadow and fade off to black in the background is due to the snoot I have used to control the beam of the flash.

Another option is to bring the light in very close as in this shot:

Here the light for is face is bouncing off the book which is only inches from is face. The result is a rather dramatic fall off limiting the light on the background. The actual background is dark blue but there is so little light on it that it barely registered on the camera sensor. I used a separate light for the book which doesn't contaminate the background because of the shadow of the book.

To get a feeling for how the light behaves, get a cheap worklight at a home store and experiment with it in a dark room. The only differences between strobes and conventional lights is that stobes are much brighter, cooler and daylight balanced.

pathfinder · February 27, 2008

starky987 wrote:

So I've given it a try and am just not having any real success. My camera will only allow me to shoot at 1/200 with the flash, not sure if thats causing any of my problems or not. Second is that I'm just lighting up too much of the background, I can't get a completely or even close to completely dark background. My images appear as if they were just taken as darker images, not blacked out. You mentioned something to use with my flash to help that out but I dont know what that is, and I'm not sure why I would need that if other people don't need it for themselves. Shouldn't I be able to do the same thing with my camera without purchasing extras? THanks for all the help, I appreciate it.

What kind of flash are you using? If you are using an EOS system flash and a Canon camera, or a Nikon flash and camera, you can set your shutter speed much, much higher if you set up your flash to shoot in High Speed Synch mode.

Limiting your shutter speed to a max of 1/200th is typical with electronic flashes that do not support High Speed Synch. With High Speed Synch you can synch at 1/4000th if your shutter goes that fast.

I drive backgrounds shot in bright sunlight to black when shooting macros, by shooting in Manual Mode with High Speed Synch routinely.

You will not be able to do this easily in the auto modes of your camera. You need to completely control aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and High Speed Synch.

1/400th f8.0 ISO 200 0 EV Manual Mode with High Speed synch with flash firing

starky987 · February 27, 2008

I'm a college student so i have a relatively small budget so I don't have that great of a flash. Mine is a Nissin Digital Speedlite Di622 zoom 24-105mm for Canon ETTL Digital Camera. That's everything it says on there. I don't think it can go higher than the 200 I've gotten it to, but if there is a way that you know of to get it faster please let me know.

pathfinder · February 28, 2008

No, sorry, you will need an EOS system ( Canon ) flash for High Speed Synch, or at least a Sigma flash dedicated to the Canon system like the 500DG - Ziggy uses the Sigma flashes in High Speed Synch I am sure.

starky987 · February 28, 2008

So will I still be able to create the dark backgrounds using that flash or is it not gonna work until I upgrade?

Phyxius · February 28, 2008

starky987 wrote:

So will I still be able to create the dark backgrounds using that flash or is it not gonna work until I upgrade?

As others have said you don't necessarily need a flash to get the black background. The amount of ambient light, distance of subject to background, shutter speed and aperature all effect how bright or dark the background is.

F8 1/125 @ 210mm

Sometimes in camera settings aren't enough to get just your subject. Here there is a green leaf on the right side of the picture that was too close to the flower and the ambient light (just regular sunlight) hit the leaf as well.

1/800 F8 300mm

So, a little editting and photoshop and I got rid of the leaf.

I think I burned it out, but you can also use the clone stamp or a paint brush.

making a black background

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