How To Get A Black Background Anywhere
May 23, 2013
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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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.
- Set the camera to its max sync speed (usually 1/250, though my old faithful D70 goes all the way to 1/500)
- Close your aperture until your back of the LCD is 100% dark.
- 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]
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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14 responses to “How To Get A Black Background Anywhere”
best done in shadow though, if your are out in the middle of the day, expect to use 2 strobes and f16
…Which should not be a problem at all on a shady location …
i should have used a full stop :)
Got to love those D70s
Great Tutorial (y)
Any tips for how I can do this with my NEX-5N (no optical viewfinder) and still focus properly? Just trial and error?
Focus before darking out the image…I presume your 5N will still allow you to manual focus. You’ll just likely have to work with a tripod to keep your focus consistent.
There is an option in the nex menu to shut off exposure preview. I don’t remember what it is called though, but it will let you focus and shoot in situations where the camera can’t see all the light that is actually in play aka studio
The D70 will sync all the way to 1/8000 with external lights (though many wireless triggers don’t support that) corded with a PC cable and you’re good to go overpowering the sun at f/2 with a speedlight on 1/4 power.
This is limited to profiles only? What about people with black hair? No separation with the background?
Add a hair light.
I am new to digital photography, but have a lighting assignment for school and I’d love to give this a try! What do I need to do it if I don’t have pocket wizard? Also, how do you get the light in the dark photo? how do you combine the two exposures? Please forgive me if these are silly questions…I am very new to all of this. Just got my camera last month! Thanks!
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i have a canon t3i 1 stroble light and only the sync cord how can i do this process