Black Background???????????

[dicklaxt]

How do you all get the solid dark backgrounds ?

#1. Use a black backdrop,,,,,,,,,,,never found on so black

#2. Post Processing,,,,,,,,, never was able to get the crisp edges

#3. Who's the big dummy,,,,,,,,,,,me of course


I should have purchased a camera with my candy money,would have been a lot smarter and had better teeth too.:lol:

Divulge your secrets,please

dick

[TheBurningCrown]

You can make any background black, the real trick is to make sure no light spills onto it.

[dicklaxt]

How ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,???

[Jeff]

I just bought about several yards of black fabric at Hobby Lobby, cut it in half (the long side), then sewed it together the other way (wide) so it makes a backdrop about 12ft wide x 15ft long or so.

Only thing I found was that I have to underexpose a little when using a flash so it doesn't light up the background.

Sample:

[Apollo.11]

you can use seamless paper too.

[dicklaxt]

I'll just bet the War Dept would declare war if I painted a wall black,,,,,,,,,, smile

thanks

[LordV]

Just to add many of the black backgrounds you see in macro shots are just lack of background when using full flash - the light fall off is so great the background comes out black.
Brian v.

[gregpphoto]

How do you all get the solid dark backgrounds ?

#1. Use a black backdrop,,,,,,,,,,,never found on so black

#2. Post Processing,,,,,,,,, never was able to get the crisp edges

#3. Who's the big dummy,,,,,,,,,,,me of course


I should have purchased a camera with my candy money,would have been a lot smarter and had better teeth too.:lol:

Divulge your secrets,please

dick

Black velvet will absorb more light than paper, I believe.

[lukeap69]

I use a black muslin backdrop.

[Greg_C]

It's an effect of your camera settings. Small aperture, fast shutter speed, low ISO and flash used as the primary light source. It can be done with a black background but this can be a pain to cart with you and and then you have to work out how it will be held in position - need an extra arm anybody. By then the bug has moved.

I usually want to go the other way. I try to have as much natural colour in the background as I can get. This means I slow down my shutter to let in more natural light, bump up my ISO to about 400. If I've got the settings right then the flash is only used as fill and natural light is the primary light source. For this to work best you have to have a nice clean background - a messy pile of sticks will looks like a blurry messy pile of sticks still. Some nice leaves might render as a smooth green background.

Every scene is different and requires a slightly different set of settings ie. how much natural light there is. In the example of the sticks I would choose to make the background black - to hide it so it doesn't detract from the shot. If the background was some nice leaves I might choose to make them part of the shot. Knowing how and when to do either of these is the trick to learn.

[themadman]

For macro shots, if you use flash, the background just tend to come out black due to low ambient light compared to the power of the flash .

[Greg_C]

For macro shots, if you use flash, the background just tend to come out black due to low ambient light compared to the power of the flash .
But they don't have too. You control the amount of light both natural and flash, just because you are using a flash doesn't mean the backgrounds HAVE to be black.

The point of my post above is you can change your settings either way. You can even add additional lighting, point one head of the MT24 Twin light at the background or even use a MT24 as the Master and add a 580 as a Slave so the slave lights the background.

[themadman]

I am not disagreeing, I am just answering the OP. =) Hence I said they tend to come out black.

[Jeff]

The OP is trying to get the background black, not determine the merits of black vs. not black.

One suggestion is a black backdrop, now there are great insights on reflectivity of black paper, muslin, cloth, etc and the OP will just have to decide what will work for him.

Here's a good suggestion that can be elaborated on.
You can make any background black, the real trick is to make sure no light spills onto it.

My Take: if your settings (ISO, Av, Tv) give your flash an effective range of say 13ft and you have a wall at 10ft, the background will not be black, you'll see the wall. If there's a wall at 16ft THEORETICALLY your background will be black since the flash (or other light source) should not illuminate (be able to reach) anything beyond 13ft. All of those numbers are estimations, not hard and fast rules. The settings will have to be adjusted till nothing shows beyond the subject.

[Warl0rd]

out there in the field will be hard to get a backdrop behind a moving bee or something like that.

on those cases, like it was already stated, a mix of lowest ISO possible, smallest aperture & flash power and fastest shutter speed will most likely render the background black in plain daylight if the distance to background is large enough

if your shooting in a lightbox, then you need the black backdrop and don't let the light hit it.

[rvdw98]

My Take: if your settings (ISO, Av, Tv) give your flash an effective range of say 13ft

then you're probably not shooting macro, as per the intent of this forum.

[krb]

out there in the field will be hard to get a backdrop behind a moving bee or something like that.
Unless of course you are able to create a "set" with a black background, a couple of flashes, some form of bait to bring them into view and the patience to wait for them to show up.