DIY – Creating a black photo background, camera settings and all
Monday, January 12th, 2009 | Author: admin
Sometimes you come across photos that have a perfect black background and you wonder how they achieved it, you wonder what they used for a backdrop or if they used photoshop…etc
Its actually very simple to create:
Here’s a diagram of the shot:
I placed Noah in a basket on the corner of the Bed and positioned the flashes opposite of each other with snoots* to minimize light spill over.
Now look at the settings used on the camera:
1/60 sec at f / 22 at 35 mm
Dual Flashes set at manual 1/2 power zoomed in and snooted* triggered with eBay remotes.
The reason everything is black id because I’m shooting at f/22 which decrases the amount of light that gets to the sensor, the flashes are the only light sources without them the image would be 100% black.
Read what a snoot is here: Strobist Blog… The master at Lighting
BTW all room lights were ON in the room, they were just overpowered by the flashes.
Cheers!
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Wednesday, 1. April 2009
Great site! I’m definitely going to try out your diy gels.
Why 1/60 sec for the baby picture? I’d guess that 1/250 sec wouldn’t change the picture and it removes possible camera movement unsharpness. 1/250 should be closer to your max flash sync speed…
Wednesday, 1. April 2009
At f/22 I needed a bit more shutter open time… You can play with the Aperture/Shutter and get similar results. Those settings worked in that particular case.
Thanks