Invisibility cloak: how to get a black background without a backdrop
Learning how to achieve black background is important in portrait photography, product photography, and in any other discipline where isolation of the subject is needed. There are many reasons why you might want to learn this effect, you could use darkened background to further emphasize the subject, to better convey your artistic vision, or simply to get rid of a busy background – This is exactly why I ventured to learn this trick: I had to shoot my own portrait for the CV, and since I don’t own a studio, my house had to be the shooting spot, and non of the rooms here are uncluttered.
There are other methods I could use to get rid of the clutter problem. I could use shallow depth of field and hope that mess in my bedroom would be concealed in the blur. I could use a black tissue or buy a real backdrop. But none of these options really worked out for me, room is too small to allow enough blur and backdrop materials cost a lot. So I was left with only one solution, and that involved using a single off-camera flash to overpower ambient light, effectively making everything behind subject (me) invisible.
Equipment
This tutorial isn’t demanding at all equipment-wise. Any digital slr or compact with manual mode capable of using off-camera flash will do just fine. You will also need an off-camera flash obviously.
Indoor/Outdoor
This solution is usable in any lightning condition, even outside during daylight. Nevertheless, try to avoid direct sunlight. If you must shoot outside, try to find a shade for optimal results. If shooting indoors avoid standing to close to the white walls as light will bounce around and the effect will be lost.
Camera Settings
This tip is very simple, all you have to do is to put camera in manual mode. Set shutter speed to max sync speed your camera allows, typically 1/200 or 1/250, and use aperture to control ambient light. That is at f/2 you will get more ambient light in the shot, and background will be darker at f/16. Experiment with different aperture settings to completely darken the background. When you get completely black frame, remember the settings and move to the flash.
Flash
Use off-camera flash to fill your subject. If light from flash is spilling, get further away from the background. It’s recommended to use reflective umbrella, half closed, to minimize spill on the background. Increase or decrease power of flash to get subject exposed correctly without illuminating anything but the subject. Remember to keep your flash-to-subject distance short and your subject-to-background to distance long, so the subject gets the full brunt of the flash while the background gets a lot less.
And the most important… Have fun!
P.s. The photo you see at the top of the page isn’t the one I used for my CV.
There are 6 comments on this post.
Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed“backdrop materials cost a lot” is the correct spelling
allot is a different word, for allotments, etc.
Don’t worry, a lot of people make this mistake, particularly when their spell-checker tries to fix ‘alot’ of mistakes.
You got it right the second time!
Hey, Thanks!
and, just between us, it wasn’t the spell-checker… totally my fault
thanks webster, last time i checked this was a blog not an english paper.
thanks for the tip, it helped allot
mrd »
Thanks, I’m glad post was helpful!
what is Off camera flash ?
Usually flash sits in the hotshoe of the camera right? off-camera-flash is the one that isn’t attached to the camera physically, but is triggered remotely.