New member question re portraiture

[Maged]

Would somebody help, how to shoot portraits with dark background without using backdrop?

[Donald]

Maged - As you can see I have moved your post here from the New Member Introduction thread. Hopefully, more members will see it here and be able to help with your enquiry.

[Manfred M]

In theory, this is fairly easy to do if you have the right room and the appropriate lighting equipment; either studio lights with light modifiers or Speedlights, again with modifiers.

You need a fairly dimly lit room (i.e. so that the ambient light has minimal impact on the exposure) and need to position your subject very close to the light source (the light source(s) should be just outside of view of the camera). This way when you fire the lights, the flash drop off (inverse square law) will be fairly sudden and only your subject will be lit and the back of the room will be dark. This of course means you need a fairly large room so the light does fall off without lighting the background; how large depends on a lot of variables (wall colour, ceiling height and colour, light modifiers used, positioning of the modifiers, etc)..

In practice, I know this can be done, but as I do shoot with a dark background, so have never needed to try this technique in real life.

[Shadowman]

The technique as Manfred describes can just as easily be practiced on a still life object, better to work on the technique without over taxing the patience of a model. Once you develop the technique, you should look into how shadows play across the face. Another option would be to get the setup worked out, then do self portraits as you learn.

[rpcrowe]

Actually, this friendly gal is willing to pose for you at any time. She also never complains how long it takes you to set up and you don't have to worry about her being angry if you screw up the images and have to reshoot...

http://www.amazon.com/Celebrity-Cosm...mannequin+head

One slight problem though, the catchlights in her eyes are painted, I wish there was a model like this with glass eyes...

[chauncey]

My black backdrop consists of a couple yards of fabric draped over a PVC frame...super cheap.

[Shadowman]

Actually, this friendly gal is willing to pose for you at any time. She also never complains how long it takes you to set up and you don't have to worry about her being angry if you screw up the images and have to reshoot...

http://www.amazon.com/Celebrity-Cosm...mannequin+head

One slight problem though, the catchlights in her eyes are painted, I wish there was a model like this with glass eyes...

Nice prop, not a bad idea.

[rpcrowe]

Nice prop, not a bad idea.

When wigs were in style for ladies, my wife had several. As she was getting rid of hers, I grabbed one to place on my friendly models bald head.

She works great as a training aid in teaching lighting. And, I can also set up my basic lighting with her as a willing accomplice before my real subject comes along. That really saves time...

[IzzieK]

Our local beauty supplies store has some of these models...Sally's.

[D L]

To add to Manfred's comment...
You need to kill your ambient light.
1. Set camera on manual mode
2. Set minimum ISO, i.e. 100 or 200
3. Set shutter speed to max flash sync speed, which is likely to be 1/200 or 1/250s (check your camera manual or google)
4. Take a test shot of your background - if it is not black close down your aperture (i.e. higher aperture number) and test again. If you close down your aperture to smallest aperture and the background is still not black, you have too much ambient light.
5. Get the subject and flash as far away from the background as possible.
6. get the flash as close to the subject as possible

Use the widest aperture you can, where your background is still black and you have adequate depth of field for your subject. This will minimize the required flash power.

The hard part will probably be what Manfred says, keeping the light from your flash off the background. It might be easier in an open space outside at night to avoid reflections from walls etc.

This exercise on strobist blog demonstrates what Manfred was talking about with flash - subject distance and flash - background distance
http://strobist.blogspot.com.au/2007...-distance.html

[jcuknz]

As for the modifiers that Manfred writes about they probably can be found around your house already and illustrated here.
The light was serving as the key light and giving a dark background until I came up with the idea of the trapdoor to let some light get to the background.

This is an older Sunpak flash and it has a syncronisation cable plugged into an Optical trigger which senses spill light from the camera's flash which was largely covered so that the camera flash is not bright enough to light the subject and/or background. A more modern flash probably does not have a sync cable and you can get a different trigger to suit working through the hot-shoe base.

Some modern flash have built in triggers such as YoungNuo.
An alternative 'model' could be like this fellow and when I did this test I had the light back at an appropriate distance for a human model although the camera was in closer.

and a final comment ... getting the answer you want with backlit sunlight and dark foliage in the background

Not quite what you want because of a sunlit bush just behind her
Photo from a sync-sunlight experiment and you would want probably to use more than just the camera flash.

[jcuknz]

To stand on one of my favorite soapboxes .... "Good lighting is controlled lighting" illustrated in a most basic way above .... lighting controlled so that it goes where you need it and not splashed all over the place.... for portraiture this as in a studio a flood light with a grid mounted on its front for the 'large source area' soft light but not spilling all around the studio as with an umbrella and the flood is close to the subject so that it is relative to the subject a large soft light. Assuming the model is female and that is the result you want.