White Background Exercise

[Brownbear]

The 2nd set of images are also stunning.

[Stagecoach]

And the end of this exercise for me.



Grahame

[Bobobird]

Lovely shots and the technique has me itching to try these out when winter days are just too bad to go out birding.

Thanks for the detailed tips and how-tos.

Post bookmarked.

[Stagecoach]

Lovely shots and the technique has me itching to try these out when winter days are just too bad to go out birding.

Thanks for the detailed tips and how-tos.

Post bookmarked.

You are welcome Bobo,

With poor natural light today still had no problem getting the repeatability and I also pushed up the flash power to just retain the blinkies on the camera with no detrimental affect.

Here's my very simple setup



Grahame

[Colin Southern]

Just thought I'd also chuck one into the mix to demo the technique that I described.

Background (un-retouched) was white A4 paper illuminated by 2 600EX-RT flashes set to 2.3 stops above middle gray ("white" + 1/3 stop), and the kiwifruit was illuminated by a 3rd flash set to middle gray + 2 stops (normal exposure).

In post-processing I needed to increase the overall exposure by 1.5 stops to normalise the safety margin that the camera gives a RAW exposure, and then minimal tweaks to the black point and brightness (midtones).

Image is cropped and sharpened, but "that's it" - in all other respects SOOC.

Notice how the fur doesn't get blown out (at the bottom) when levels are managed carefully. Apologies for the specularity -- it's too late and I'm too lazy to setup a softbox for key lighting, so the primary illuminant is quite hard.

[Mike Buckley]

Apologies for the specularity

I like the specular highlights. They bring out the texture without being distracting. I might feel different about that if I saw the image without those highlights.

[Brownbear]

Wonderful thread, Grahame... Thank you for sharing. Beautiful red flower, as is Colin's kiwi!

[Wavelength]

I really liked these works; let the nice work go on

[nimitzbenedicto]

And the end of this exercise for me.



Grahame

Very nice.

The flower really stands out, it's clear and pleasant to look at.

The white background doesn't look like "glare" which overwhelm the subject.

[Kaye Leggett]

Hi Donald,

I had to look up the word sublime, thank you.

The original had a lot more white space around it because I wanted to check for variations in brightness and the exercise had concentrated more on achieving that rather than producing a picture. Cropping and positioning is something I now put more effort into using the knowledge that I have learnt here.

Its good to know there are others who spend days perfecting a technique before they even think about composition.

[rpcrowe]

Perhaps this might be interesting...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIUp6bGooE4

[pasusan]

Grahame - I really enjoy this series - thanks for sharing and the explanations.

[Stagecoach]

Colin,

The kiwi has made me hungry

As you know I'm taking these images using natural light on the subject and the reason being is that I have found that flash on very small delicate flowers etc is not ideal plus I want to experiment.

Whilst I do not have a light meter do you consider that one would be an advantage and give me consistent results assuming that the subject is a single flower such as above which was 20mm diameter?

Grahame

[Stagecoach]

Richard,

I watched that video 3/4 of the way through and came to the conclusion that I could have taken the shots and processed them in less time than it would have taken to use that method. He also uses a subject that is all in focus with pretty clearly defined edges whereas with the majority of fine macro work you are going to have an edge such as the red flower you want to retain very soft.

For items with clearly defined edges there are tools and methods within Elements and hence Photoshop I believe you can use but have had no experience.

Grahame

[Colin Southern]

Hi Grahame,

You can work around it without a meter, but it's harder.

In essence what you're trying for is the same exposure for the background (plus a tiny margin) as the subject ; a light meter just tells it like it is, whereas without one you have to experiment.

To work around it though you can always spot meter (with the camera) a white card in place of the subject - up-shift the exposure by exactly 2 stops - take a shot of the white card - see where the histogram spike is - then just photograph the background whilst increasing/decreasing until the histogram is in the same place + 1/3 of a stop.

There's possibly other ways to do it, but that way will work.

When I shot the kiwifruit last night I decided I wanted to shoot at F16, so I spot-metered the white background with the light meter whilst firing the flashes until the light meter said F16 (which gets me to middle gray) - I then told the flashes to go up from there 2 1/3 stops whilst locking the F16 reading into the lightmeter and switching it to contrast mode - fired a shot - and checked the offset was 2.3 stops (middle gray to white + 1/3). From there I turned off the back flashes and took an incident reading on the foreground flash - got that to F16 - switched on all flashes - and "job done" (all manual exposure by the way).

The lightmeter just makes it easier - especially in the studio when photographing models, as ratios are impossible to judge accurately off the camera screen or TV.

In your case - using natural light - you may need to add gels to the flash depending on the colour temperature of the ambient light; if the difference is too big then you're going to have to choose between having a pure white background or colour accuracy in your subject. For most control - personally - I'd just hit the subject with light from a big softbox attached to a strobe; it'll be softer than direct sunlight, and no colour temp issues.

[Stagecoach]

Nandakumar,

Pleased you are enjoying this. Now that Colin has thrown down the gauntlet with that very nice kiwi fruit I just have to continue

Grahame

[Colin Southern]

Richard,

I watched that video 3/4 of the way through and came to the conclusion that I could have taken the shots and processed them in less time than it would have taken to use that method. He also uses a subject that is all in focus with pretty clearly defined edges whereas with the majority of fine macro work you are going to have an edge such as the red flower you want to retain very soft.

For items with clearly defined edges there are tools and methods within Elements and hence Photoshop I believe you can use but have had no experience.

Grahame

If there are clean edges (typical of product shots) then separating the product from the background is so easy it almost feels like cheating (almost!). The problem is when there's things like fine hair in the way - that's when you need to nail it or it makes life bloody difficult.

[Colin Southern]

now that colin has thrown down the gauntlet with that very nice kiwi fruit i just have to continue:d

dON'T MAKE ME BRING OUT THE SOFTBOX!

[Stagecoach]

Colin, My challenge to the Kiwi fruit was going to be my next post but I have just used my recently acquired white card for the first time, followed your work around exactly and guess what!

Opened in ACR, the entire white area measured 255 apart from a couple of 253s. Adjusted black point and brightness very slightly to improve the subject and undertook standard sharpening in Elements, nowt else. The point of focus was the very fine hair midway on the green part at the top.



Grahame

[Colin Southern]

Well done!

If you understand the principle, then you can start adding variations, like changing the brightness of the back ground; if you're shooting both subject and background with flash then you can totally control the light - dropping the background back 1 stop will make it a light gray - 1 stop more a middle gray - 1 more a dark gray - and one more a black

Bit harder with ambient light too though, because that's also hitting the background, so you'll more than likely get a light gray anyway, unless you can get the background into a darker area where you can control it better (or consider making a light trap out of black velvet)