How To Get A Black Background Anywhere

Here is a great “trick” if you want to shoot portraits on black in the outdoors. Photographer Glyn Dewis shows using a cheap brolli, a manual flash and the rules of physics to shut down ambient light and get a black background even if there is some light outside.

The workflow is pretty basic and should work as long as your strobe can overpower the ambient light. Which should not be a problem at all on a shady location with a hot shoe speedlight.

1. Set the camera to its max sync speed (usually 1/250, though my old faithful D70 goes all the way to 1/500)
2. Close your aperture until your back of the LCD is 100% dark.
3. Set the strobe inside a semi-open umbrella. Having the Brolli semi-open help tunneling the light forward rather than the usual big spread of the umbrella so it eliminates any light leaks.

For the complete run down of this method watch the video below.

[The Invisible Black Background via ISO 1200]