Black Background

Tommyboy

Here is a link to some really top-quality product photography, in this case, tobacco pipes.

http://www.glpease.com/Calendar/index.html

Many of the shots feature a completely black background. Can anyone describe to me the technique used to achieve this effect? What is used to prevent the flash from exposing the background (presumably a black background)?

Any advice much appreciated.

pathfinder

Use a black, non-reflective velvet background is one way.

Another using a white background, is to have it far enough behind the lit foreground subject, so that the light fall off is more than 2-3 stops, and hence falls to black in the camera. The key is the ratio between the flash to subject distance, and the flash to background distance, and the inverse square law which causes the background to get darker and darker as the ratio of flash distance to subject/flash distance to background gets smaller and smaller. EG the flash is very close to the subject and far from the background.

Zanotti

Barn doors (simply something to keep light from spilling onto the backround) will help as well.

If you put cardboard between the light source and the background to keep light from the background that wil help as well. These look to be side lit from a soft box type source.


Z

Art Scott

This look can also be achieved by shooting with Chromakey and then adding background of choice...............

jopapeca

Art Scott wrote:

This look can also be achieved by shooting with Chromakey and then adding background of choice...............

Will any blue or green background work? or need to have some special properties?

pathfinder

So will black velvet

Art Scott

jopapeca wrote:

Will any blue or green background work? or need to have some special properties?

Most any will work if lit properly.....it has to be lit so it does not refect back onto the subject....that way it can be cut and pasted or just recolored.....and as Pathfinder stated black velvet will work but sometimes find large enuff blk velvet is tuff enuff ................:D

Chroma Key is a special version of neon/florescent green / blue ...first used to it best on E.T. for the bicycling across the moon scenes...........

pathfinder

Art, getting enough black velvet for product shots shouldn't be too hard. For modeling shots it will be much harder.

For a larger backdrop, I have used flat black upholstery vinyl for some of my backdrops from time to time, like this. It can be found in 60 in wide rolls if you look around



One has to be careful and gobo or flag the lights so that they do not fall on the backdrop, if the subjects are close to it. If they are 8 or 10 feet in front of it, and the softbox is only 2 or 3 feet from the subject, you may get away with a white background as described by Zack Arias here There are actually five separate links for Zack's complete discussion and they are all well worth a look. His description of a set for high key backgrounds is excellent.