Lighting on Black Background

I want to be able to get nice deep black backgrounds but also be able put a gell on

a light and point it at the background so that it shows up like on the picture I

attached to the message.

Is there a certain material or shade of black that I would need to be able to do this

or could I just go to wal-mart and pick up a black bed sheet?

If you want a red background, such as in the picture, use a gray background and light it with red light. A black background won't reflect enough light to show up red in the picture.

 

A good deep black background is deep black because it does not reflect much light, therefore it's gonna be very difficult to make it reflect red, without throwing a lot of light at it.

 

Easier to just get some gray seamless paper for your colored backgrounds, and buy a good piece of black velvet for those shots that require deep black.

 

<Chas>

for black black, i use black velvet. if exposed as the light meter says, then the black is

ever pure, unless you have enough space to have the background without any light

hitting it. thus, black velvet exposed per meter with a red light, will give you a red tint, in

my experience. if you want pure black, i have found that a -2 stops gives absolute

black. and if you are processing film, you can then bring the highlights back with a +2,

as Ansel Adams might have suggested, thus exposing for the shadows, and

processing for the hightlights.

 

t

Yes, true black velvet (not the imitation stuff sold cheaply and often described as velvet) is almost as non-reflective as it gets, when perpendicular to the subject at least, and isn't suitable for your purpose.

 

Grey is a good choice, provided that it's far enough away from the subject and that no stray light falls on it.

 

But black paper will do fine, provided that you have enough lighting power. This subject has been covered in detail in the Lighting Themes http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00BjHh

As T Feltus said, if you want a true black, real velvet works the best.

 

If you want to add color with a gel to a black background a grey tone is the easiest to work with.

 

By positioning the background far enough behind the subject and shielding it from the main lighting you can make it be a very rich black. Once you've isolated the background tone by distance from the subject it's easy to add a color gel and create a bright, pure color.

 

A black background works if you have enough lighting power to make the color gel bright enough. A white bacground also works if you can position it far enough from the subject and dial down the amount of light through the color gel.

 

But a grey background is the best because it's easy to have it go dark enough to render as a black and it's not dark enough to require a ton of light to create a bright color.

 

Here's a shot of Barend motorcycle mirrors using a black art board positioned about 8 ft. behind the subject and lit with a magenta gel and grid spot.<div></div>

I think I have plenty of power to get a light to show up on the black. I have 2 x 2400 w/s packs. That would probably be my best choice since I dont have much room to seperate my subject from the background.

I could turn the background light on full blast to get the color to show up and I wouldnt have to worry about the light from the main light and fill light since it wont be intense enough to do anything to the black background.

Does that sound like it will work? Where is the best place to go to get some black velvet?

Andrew,

 

As I said before, black velvet is a bad choice for your purpose. It only reflects about 5% of the incident light, which is why it's so good if you DON'T want any light to reflect from it. Add the filter factor from the gel(s) and 2,400 J doesn't seem quite so powerful.

 

Brooks, you need to type faster :-)

I'm typing as fast as I can. I'm not a strong swimmer !

As the strobist guy would say, less gear, more brain. Just because you have 4800 w/s to play with doesn't mean you need to use all of it. With the right light modifiers, even a white background can have the snoot look with a nice fall-off to black. I shoot a lot of ceramics on a grey background, which i graduate to black with my lighting. My suggestion would be to get a piece of gray seamless, and light it with a single head with 7" reflector, honeycomb grid, and whatever color gel you want. Then, light your subject with softboxes, or, the solution I like-gridded heads shot through scrims. Basically, you just need to keep your main lights from hitting the background.<div></div>

I've done it both ways. With a small space to work with, and only a light gray and Photek "blackest black" velour background, I'm limited in what I can accomplish. As others have noted, it certainly would be easier with a medium to dark gray background and a focused, gelled strobe. In my case with the limited space and light gray background, I can't get deep rich colors with gelled lights on the gray. I can get just the slightest hint of deep rich color by lighting the black background with gelled lights, and nice full rich color by blasting it. The problem here is preventing this massive amount of light from spilling on the subject in a small space. In the example you posted, the entire color balance was shifted to the red, indicating that this could be what happened there. My point is that if you really want a black background for other things, and feel you can control the spill, the black velour (not velvet) can give some nice dense colors with gelled lighting.

 

Kevin