Flowers-creating black backgrounds

[dennis osipiak]

I admire the stark contrast of flowers with jet black backgrounds.

In the field as opposed to studio lighting setups, how does one

achieve this effect? I know photoshop would be an obvious way, but

how about without it? I went through a search and 9 pages of

postings and finally decided to go to a direct question route. I'm

sure I can be directed to various print sources, but any comment,

general or specific here would be appreciated...and/ or a link to

another source.

Thanks in advance

Dennis

[antonrussell]

In the field, usually with a macro ring flash on the lens filter thread or (better but less compact) two ordinary flashes on brackets, mounted on either side of the camera. The light from the flash falls off in proportion to the square of the distance from the bulb, so the subject can be perfectly lit and the background jet black. Ring flashes give very flat and even lighting to a flower; using two synchronised flashes gives you a lot of creative potential with angles and distances to get interesting lighting effects.

[jeffrey_lan]

as a second option to the flash fall-off, you can get a sheet of black fabric (felt works well) and hold it up behind the flower. use a fairly wide f-stop to ensure that the texture of the fabric gets blurred away to an even black.

[jeff.grant]

The simple answer is that it just happens, ring flash or not. I use an RRS flash and a 550EX. The harder trick is to not get a black background. Try it out, it will happen, particularly in the early morning when there are likely to be deep shadows around.

[red_jenny]

I bought a cheap vinyl black shower curtain (yes, it was black - that's why it was so cheap) and put it behind the flowers. Then i got some desk lamps with articulated arms and shined (shone?) them on the flower, and viola I had an excellent jet black background. The flowers came out gorgeous. I'll have to scan and post them one of these days. Try chysthanthemums. And cow-lillies.

[gaius1]

Like <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/2537613">this</a> or <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/2534987">this</a>? It's just use of flash for the foreground and red filtration to darken the (green grass) background.

[ed_nazarko]

I shoot even mid-day, and can get black backgrounds without black foamcore backdrops or velvet or any of that stuff. Here's how I do it.

 

I use a flash. I diffuse the devil out of it, not a big deal since it's going to be inches away from the subject. Pick a shutter speed as high as your flash will sync, and an aperture as small as your flash power can handle. With a Nikkor macro racked way out, for example, my fstop ends up at f36 or higher. With a sync speed at 1/180, do the math - if you exposed a picture outdoors mid day at ISO 100, you'd get black. Because you're lighting the flower with the flash - voila! I can also shoot handheld this way, instead of a tripod, because the effective exposure speed is the speed of the flash, around 1/1000 of a second or higher. Nice to not have tripods.

 

If you wander through the flower, red, and macro sections of my web site, you'll see the results. No photoshopping, and no backdrops. Botanical gardens love me, no tripods in the way, no backdrops. They they hate photogs who do backdrops and tripods.

[sean de merchant httpw]

Shoot with the subject in direct sunlight and the background in the shade while metering (spot or partial spot in camera) off the subject. So long as the background is a couple stops darker than the subject you should get a dark background.

 

And then use your favorite wet/digital darkroom method (burning in, levels, curves, ...) to clean it up.

 

Using flash to make the subject several stops brighter than the background also works.

 

some thoughts,

 

Sean