DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

One. Two. Three. White Background

Jul 7, 2009 by Udi Tirosh Leave a Comment

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Headshot - White BackgroundHow do you take a lovely portrait like this, on a perfect white background? Of course you’ll need a beautiful model. But how would you handle the lighting? Just throw about 10000 Watts/Seconds on your seamless white and you’re good. 

Or use a single strobe and 5$ worth of white Coroplast. Read on for the full details. 

Going with the theme of doing more with less, Tony Puerzer (Flickr) did it using just one Canon 580EX. (Well, actually there was also an SB26 involved, but the great background was all the 580). And no special backdrop involved, just the walls of his living room.

The two main challenges with creating a perfect white background are to shed a ton of light on the backdrop and to spread the light evenly.

I’ll discuss power in a bit. As for power, speedlites can only go so far, so the flash would have to be set to full power. 

As for even lighting, this is where the genius part comes in. Diffusion is achieved by reflection of the light, while flagging the light source from the camera.

To get that white evenly spread, Tony reflected the strobe off a board of Coroplast. The light then bounces to the wall to create an even area of light. Note that even on full power, the background is not overblown. 

As for power – speedlites can only go so far, so both lights were on full power. The nice thing is that the onmibounce and bounced light from the Coroplast get pretty nice fill coming from all the walls in the room.

Lighting Setup

Speaking of backgrounds, Studio @ Home first assignment, which is all about backgrounds, is up and running.

More Reading:
– Full Scale Backdrops & Backgrounds
– Metering A White Background
– Getting A White Background with Speedlights
– White Seamless Tutorial :: Part 1 :: Gear & Space

 

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

Three ways to make the best out of your background in the studio How to get three different looks with a single $5 gold background Three tools to rule them all: How to fix anything in Photoshop with three basic tools Three one-light setups using V-Flats with three very different looks

Filed Under: DIY Tagged With: backdrop, flash

About 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.

« Studio @ Home – 1st Assignment
Speed Links for 07-10-2009 »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup
DIYPhotography

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts

  • Sony teases upcoming ZV-E1 full-frame vlogging camera coming on March 29
  • The Xencelabs Pen Display 24 is silent, glare-free retouching tablet
  • Fall in love with astrophotography with these 10 space objects
  • Hipstamatic app relaunches as a social network, but only for iOS
  • Instagram now has ads even in search results. Sigh

Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy