Project365 - Black Backdrop

Introduction

Today I learned much more about a technique I had attempted once before. Now that I better understood how it worked, I believe I am better able to put it to good use. You see, one of the things that most studio photographers invest in is backdrops. Often large rolls of seamless white or black paper, they allow the subject to be the true focus of the photograph. Who knew I was carrying a black backdrop around in my camera ?!?

It's truly a simple effect involving the use of flash (or sometimes called strobe) photography. Cameras have a maximum speed with which they can sync with the flash to achieve a nicely lit picture, it's usually around 1/250th of a second. Keeping that portion of the exposure triangle still, we next dial down the ISO (the sensitivity of the CCD) to 100. The only thing left that is adjustable is the aperture. All we do is close that down until a picture taken in the ambient light is completely black. Now, anything lit up by the flash will be nicely lit, while the background remains black.

The Setup

Nothing really complicated the Canon 60D, set at f/16, ISO 100, and a shutter speed of 1/250th of a second. The Cactus v5 was mounted in the hotshoe, so I could use the Canon 430EX II off-camera. I placed it on a basic tripod with the other Cactus v5, so I could move the light & the camera around freely.

The Photos

Believe it or not, this is a photo of Pat's flowers on the dining room table. I was setting the ISO, Aperture and shutter speed to get a black background. Got it !

 

Whoops ! The flash was spilling onto the background too much, so I elected to put a snoot on the flash, to more tightly focus the beam.

That's better ! Although you will notice the pen & paper on the tabletop still show up faintly. Now to play around a bit... ;-)

The first few pictures weren't as bright as I would have liked, so they came out a little dull. Time to up the power of the flash a notch, and move the light stand a little closer !

Much better ! I like the contrast created by the various petals on the flowers.

I think this is one of my favorite photographs of the shoot...

Lessons Learned

I thought I really understood this technique, but now with a little better tutorial, I think I know how to nail it whenever I need it. Certainly, implementing the snoot helped narrow the beam, and moving the light stand over to one side helped with not lighting the background. I really like this technique & see myself using it for portrait work.

 

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