HELP!! The pure white background /floor look greyish...

I did some test shots with my setup and the resulting background /floor looks greyish. How can I get them to look perfectly white without grey tints? Any help would be greatly appreciated....

Here is my setup (of a very small home studio, 8 feet across).

- 5 feet wide pure white vinyl backdrop.
- White tile boards as the floor.
- Bowens Gemini 400 aiming to backdrop from the side (with reflector and shoot through umbrella)... aimming towards the far side of the background at around 30 degrees.
- Bi-fold white foam boards to block the background light from directly hitting the subject.
- The second Bowen Gemini 400 as key light aiming to subject (softbox).
- SS set at 1/125 and ISO set at 400 (to reduce required flash power since my subject is a baby).

Light meter readings:
- Left side of the backdrop - 8.0
- Center of the backdrop - 8.0
- Right side of the backdrop - 5.6
- Back of subject (facing the backdrop) - 5.6
- Front subject (facing the key light) - 5.6

In terms of white balance, I took a picture of the (f8.0 portion) of the white backdrop under the same condition, and then use that picture as custom white balance.

The end result is a picture that seems to have the subject properly exposed, however both the floor and the background look a bit grey (quite uniform), with the grey tint slightly more heavy at the colder side of the backdrop.

I must have done something wrong and I am unsure what it is.... can someone please advise???

When I shoot a white backdrop, I make sure that I get it about 3 stops over exposed. That way it looks perfectly while. Yours is looking grey because you are under exposing it.

mattymx wrote in post #15878910
When I shoot a white backdrop, I make sure that I get it about 3 stops over exposed. That way it looks perfectly while. Yours is looking grey because you are under exposing it.

What Matt said above.....

Your camera's meter as well as most hand held meters are calibrated to an 18% gray card or very close to it. When you metered your "white" setup, it was attempting to render it as 18% gray and that's why you got the dimmer, off white results.

The same things happpen when people photograph snowy scenes. The snow loses it clean white appearance and people's faces have that dark or deep tanned look. In both cases you just have realize the environment in which you are shooting and then "outthink" the exposure system.....it might be 1-stop or 3-stops; you'll just have to experiment with your particular setup until you achieve the desired results.

And Btw, as a new member welcome to POTN.

Thanks for the advise guys! I will try to increase the power of the background light strobe and re-test then (orginally I didn't think of going beyond 1.5 stops for the background light).

In terms of white balance, did I do the right thing? i.e. took a picture of the hotter portion of the white backdrop under the same condition, and then use that picture as custom white balance.

Thanks again guys!

You are welcome new - per your WB you're on the right track.