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Photography - Tips/Tutorials: Black Backgrounds

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    Hi everyone,

    I love taking close up pictures and I especially like taking shots of plants and flowers. I always see these wonderful shots with this black background. How on earth do you do that? Is it post-processing or is it settings?
    Can anyone give me a hand?
    Just one more thing: I don't have a DSLR...only a point and shoot....any way to do it with that??

    Thanks so much!
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      CommentAuthorshuva (Admin)
    • CommentTimeFeb 5th 2009
     
    Some people have a proper setup and lighting and yet some people do only post processing. Post processing is very time consuming in these case, so having a proper setup with black background is better. Even with proper black backdrop people do post processing to make the background really black. Here is a link that demonstrates with examples product photography for both white and black backgrounds, which you can do at home:

    http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents/HowTo_page.htm
    • CommentAuthordobbino
    • CommentTimeFeb 6th 2009
     
    Hi Eloradaphne - I'm no expert by any manner of means, but the first thing you need to do if you don't have any outside aids to to use the largest aperture (smallest /f number) you have available to you. If you have a look at [url=http://dobbino.aminus3.com/portfolio/]my portfolio page[/url], you will see a number of flower shots with black or dark backgrounds. The earlier shots were just natural, taken with a large aperture, but for the later ones I used a black piece of poster paper as a background. However, as Shuva says above, even with the black paper (it never comes out completely black), I used a small amount of post processing (levels or curves adjustment) to make it completely black.
    • CommentAuthordobbino
    • CommentTimeFeb 6th 2009
     
    Oops! I'm not sure how to do this - hope the link comes out: my portfolio page
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      CommentAuthorjason (Admin)
    • CommentTimeFeb 7th 2009
     
    Another trick you may want to experiment with is to buy a piece of black velvet from a fabric store (or posterboard as Dobbino suggested). The fabric is a bit more flexible than the poster board and is less likely to reflect any light especially when you start to bend it.

    If you have some extra cash for photographic supplies, you may want to look into buy a reflector (like this one)

    The reflector allows you to take natural sunlight and aim it at the flower, lighting it up tremendously. That way you can photograph flowers in shade. Also if you use the black velvet backdrop technique, you can almost surround the flower in the black velvet which would normally make it dark but then lighten it up by aiming the reflector at it.

    If you are not ready to buy a reflector but still want to experiment, try using a piece of white poster board or but post board and wrap aluminum foil around it.

    There are lots of different ways to play around - let us know after you've posted some of your shots to your blog !
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    Thanks everyone! I look formard to experimenting your advice! :)
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    On any shot, I first consider the background, ie "what am I shooting this against". In the case of a flower, I would maneuver in such a way to choose a dark background over one with broken light, carrying only my camera, no reflectors etc. I shoot RAW and expose to the right ie fill the histogram to the right, +EV, so that I can enhance the darks without incurring noise. best...jerry
    • CommentAuthordobbino
    • CommentTimeFeb 25th 2009
     
    Hi Jerry - what you say here is most interesting. I'm no expert by any manner of means, but my question with the overexposure is does this not blow out any fine detail in the petals? I normally underexpose for flower shots to make sure I get the detail.
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    Just to be certain, I'm speaking of RAW file processing. Also, your interpretation of black background may differ from mine. I prefer a hint of detail in the darks rather than a completely blocked black. You can read more about expose right on luminous-landscape.
    • CommentAuthordobbino
    • CommentTimeFeb 28th 2009
     
    Thanks Jerry - a very interesting article indeed. I followed most of it - just got blown away at the end with the comment "Also be aware though that by doing this you are in fact effectively lowering the ISO used to capture the image, requiring slower shutter speeds and/or larger apertures. If you are hand-holding the camera, or shooting moving objects, the tradeoff may not be worth the reduced noise level."
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    True. With a reasonably fast lens in an Aperture priority setting, shutter speeds for hand holding are usually more than adequate. Have fun!
    • CommentAuthoreloradaphne
    • CommentTimeApr 6th 2009 edited
     
    Hi everyone, even though I stared this thread, I'm the last one to finally get around to doing it, but I did! I took a bit of advice from everyone and did my best to get some decent shots, even though I had to improvise some things. In the next week I'll be posting my results on my blog. Please critique away! It's always the best way to learn! www.eloradaphne.aminus3.com
    Sorry I don't know how to make it link :(
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    ...hot link here Looks like you found it, the flowers seem a click dark. best...jerry

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