Pixtus - Photography Forum, Photographers, Photo Tips

abril1127 · **White Background Portraits -** 03-03-2008, 03:24 PM

I took some Senior pics for a friend. I had a 5 ft wide roll of white paper (definitely need wider). I set my camera and it looks bright white on the camera screen once I got these on the computer I ended up having to adjust every one of them b/c they were grey. Is this normal? Is there a setting on my camera? (Nikon D50) Do you have any tips for doing pure white backgrounds.
Also she put them on Myspace and now they really look grey and Yucky!
I am new at this but hoping to make some money off of it soon
CC welcome
Thanks!

abril1127 · 03-03-2008, 03:32 PM

hmmm my picture didn't show up. Click here
http://picasaweb.google.com/Abril112...00693735789298

abril1127 · 03:42 PM

I just joined this grop not sure how to post or delete posts....will go figure that out....

sbug_adam · 03-03-2008, 03:46 PM

did you have a strobe pointed at the background? If not that looks to be the issue then.

gmarblestone · 03-03-2008, 03:56 PM

yeah make sure you flash or put a light on the background because the flash bouncing off the person will darken the background i think.

G

abril1127 · 03-03-2008, 04:04 PM

Yes I had it on the background but spilling over onto the girl.
The colors look dull now that I've messed with them. I saved them as photoshop files, do you think that's why they don't look good uploaded into picasa?

bondarnes · 03-03-2008, 04:28 PM

For Hi-Key (white background) photos you must light the background separately from the subject. There are several ways to do this, the easiest being to have a different light hitting the background. The reason the background is darker than the subject involves the "Inverse Square Law of Light". It involves physics, but basically says "the further the light has to travel the less there will be when it gets there." Since the light was closer to the subject than the background, it gave more light to the subject.

abril1127 · 03-03-2008, 04:36 PM

That makes sense....It just looked really good on the camera screen.
Now how can you see the true color on your Camera?
Also do you light the background using the light with or without a softbox?

toverman · 03-03-2008, 04:56 PM

This will help more in a non-studio setting, but you can also set a custom white balance. Basically you shoot something white, register that image as your CWB (not sure how to on a Nikon, but it's a menu thing on my Canons) and it will make that white pure white in that particular lighting situation.

Roadrnr · 03-03-2008, 05:00 PM

This is what I typically do in a studio setting shooting hi key shots

bondarnes · 03-03-2008, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abril1127

That makes sense....It just looked really good on the camera screen.
Now how can you see the true color on your Camera?
Also do you light the background using the light with or without a softbox?

You can't really judge an image by what you see on the camera LCD screen. It only gives you a suggestion of the final image.

In my studio my background lights for my hi-key sweep are two small lights located permanently on the ceiling on either side and they only have barn doors on them. I also use a main light and a fill light.

gll · 03-03-2008, 09:05 PM

I Think if you had a 500 f4, rofl

robert t · 03-03-2008, 09:09 PM

What happen to the image?

abril1127 · 03-03-2008, 09:09 PM

Ahh you found me! You two finally got me sucked into this thing!

abril1127 · 03-03-2008, 09:14 PM

What F stop do you shoot High Key in? I had heard to shoot it F11 but im not getting very pretty pics at F11 with White. Better at F5.6
...While Im asking what's your ISO?

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White Background Portraits