Black Foam Board Lighting Technique

I have been "playing" around with the Office Depot Black Foam Core boards, trying to replicate what others have done with flowers and other inanimate objects, and have not been fetting the results that I want. I usually get a very gray board color, or you can see a slight reflection of the flash. I was about three feet away from the board and I was using indoor lighting. What would you try to get that rich black back ground?

If you could give me basic lighting tecniques and camera settings that would be a great place to experiment with, that would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Dan - San Diego

Don't use on-camera flash and try tilting the board away from the light source to reduce glare. If this doesn't work to your satisfaction, Hobby Lobby sells black flocked paper in large sheets about the same size which might give better results. In fact you could staple/glue it to one side of your foam board.

Cassandra

Daniel Barnett said:

I have been "playing" around with the Office Depot Black Foam Core
boards, trying to replicate what others have done with flowers and
other inanimate objects, and have not been fetting the results that
I want. I usually get a very gray board color, or you can see a
slight reflection of the flash. I was about three feet away from
the board and I was using indoor lighting. What would you try to
get that rich black back ground?

If you could give me basic lighting tecniques and camera settings
that would be a great place to experiment with, that would be
greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Dan - San Diego

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/cassandra

First off, turn off that flash. Next use whatever light sources you like to illuminate the objects from multiple angles and last, bracket your exposure and experiment.

Morris

Daniel Barnett said:

I have been "playing" around with the Office Depot Black Foam Core
boards, trying to replicate what others have done with flowers and
other inanimate objects, and have not been fetting the results that
I want. I usually get a very gray board color, or you can see a
slight reflection of the flash. I was about three feet away from
the board and I was using indoor lighting. What would you try to
get that rich black back ground?

If you could give me basic lighting tecniques and camera settings
that would be a great place to experiment with, that would be
greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Dan - San Diego

Click to expand...

Daniel Barnett said:

I have been "playing" around with the Office Depot Black Foam Core
boards, trying to replicate what others have done with flowers and
other inanimate objects, [snip] What would you try to
get that rich black back ground?

Click to expand...

Do you mean shots like these:







If so, in each of these cases I didn't use any background, other than what was there naturally. But in each case I did shoot them facing the same direction in my garden and at the same time of day - two were in exactly the same spot. They were all shot late afternoon with low sun (a fabulous time of day to take photos) and taken facing towards the sun (the poppy at a slight angle) and from very low. With the yellow poppy I simply wiggled about until the flower was approximately in front of a dark patch of a fern in shadow behind it.

I have a walled garden and late in the afternoon for about an hour, the ground in the garden is in shadow from the wall, but the plants are still in full sun. I simply duck down low to the flower and shoot towards the sun using a fully wide aperture. If you spot meter for the details on the flower and ignore the rest of the scene and frame it tightly, the exposure will allow the detail of the flower to be recorded, but the wide aperture and shallow depth of field prevent the background being developed enough - as you can see in the top tulip, the leaves below start to disappear as they get more distant from the flower - try a few at different bracketed exposures and see which you like best. You will almost certainly find that some brght spots of your background may show through, so you simply clone/retouch these out if they spoil the view for you.

If you use a black board, as I did for this one, same flower as above, taken at the same time, but facing the opposite direction, tilt the board downwards so that it doesn't reflect light back to the lens, which it will if it's parallel to the lens. With this one, I deliberately stood and made a shadow over the flower as the direct sunlight was far too harsh, I wanted a more subtle light on this one.



Another tip for your arsenal is to have a piece of screwed up then smoothed out aluminium foil stuck on a piece of card to reflect light back to shadow areas of the flower/subject where you have harsh shadows - works a treat - although I didn't use it on any of these shots.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - live music photography tutorial

Daniel Barnett said:

I have been "playing" around with the Office Depot Black Foam Core
boards, trying to replicate what others have done with flowers and
other inanimate objects, and have not been fetting the results that
I want. I usually get a very gray board color, or you can see a
slight reflection of the flash. I was about three feet away from
the board and I was using indoor lighting. What would you try to
get that rich black back ground?

If you could give me basic lighting tecniques and camera settings
that would be a great place to experiment with, that would be
greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Dan - San Diego

Click to expand...

--I can't replicate Boos way of takeing her shots in Garden..my shots always have background in it out of focus but still there..(will try your way boo)(Thanks for explaining) So I get rid of my backgrounds in Photoshop....But for inside its a Matt Black Card i use, or blue sometimes, but you gota use a light n practise with the position of it....Old Black Velvet Dress or Curtains is best if you can get some....Set an an Angle, sloping back from object...Good Luck..
MrScary (DennisR)
Swansea, Wales. UK

http://www.pbase.com/dennisr
http://community.webshots.com/user/mrscarecrow
http://digiden.photoshare.co.nz

Great work Boo!

Morris

Boo said:

Daniel Barnett said:

I have been "playing" around with the Office Depot Black Foam Core
boards, trying to replicate what others have done with flowers and
other inanimate objects, [snip] What would you try to
get that rich black back ground?

Click to expand...

Do you mean shots like these:







If so, in each of these cases I didn't use any background, other
than what was there naturally. But in each case I did shoot them
facing the same direction in my garden and at the same time of day

• two were in exactly the same spot. They were all shot late

afternoon with low sun (a fabulous time of day to take photos) and
taken facing towards the sun (the poppy at a slight angle) and from
very low. With the yellow poppy I simply wiggled about until the
flower was approximately in front of a dark patch of a fern in
shadow behind it.

I have a walled garden and late in the afternoon for about an hour,
the ground in the garden is in shadow from the wall, but the plants
are still in full sun. I simply duck down low to the flower and
shoot towards the sun using a fully wide aperture. If you spot
meter for the details on the flower and ignore the rest of the
scene and frame it tightly, the exposure will allow the detail of
the flower to be recorded, but the wide aperture and shallow depth
of field prevent the background being developed enough - as you can
see in the top tulip, the leaves below start to disappear as they
get more distant from the flower - try a few at different bracketed
exposures and see which you like best. You will almost certainly
find that some brght spots of your background may show through, so
you simply clone/retouch these out if they spoil the view for you.

If you use a black board, as I did for this one, same flower as
above, taken at the same time, but facing the opposite direction,
tilt the board downwards so that it doesn't reflect light back to
the lens, which it will if it's parallel to the lens. With this
one, I deliberately stood and made a shadow over the flower as the
direct sunlight was far too harsh, I wanted a more subtle light on
this one.



Another tip for your arsenal is to have a piece of screwed up then
smoothed out aluminium foil stuck on a piece of card to reflect
light back to shadow areas of the flower/subject where you have
harsh shadows - works a treat - although I didn't use it on any of
these shots.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - live music photography
tutorial

Click to expand...

MrScary said:

--I can't replicate Boos way of takeing her shots in Garden..my
shots always have background in it out of focus but still
there..(will try your way boo)(Thanks for explaining)

Click to expand...

I think you need to keep low to the object and the light source, which is low itself, it simply doesn't work earlier in the day - and I dodge about until it simply looks right, sometimes you just strike lucky, the poppy one was taken in 20 seconds with no preparation in a flash of sunlight between rain clouds that lasted about 2 minutes and was gone - I was just mucking about filling up the camera to test the MD I was having bother with. Saw the lovely droplets, ducked down and dodged to get the flower in front of a dark patch behind and it worked out okay.

Sometimes it's just luck - take a lot from slightly different angles and different exposures and hopefully you'll nail it in one of them, for each of the photos I posted, there are probably ten or more that didn't quite work.

MrScary said:

Old Black Velvet Dress or Curtains is
best if you can get some....

Click to expand...

You can buy photo background paper that is flock sprayed just like velvet which kills reflections - buying big rolls for studio work is expensive, but I've picked up two rolls on separate occasions at car boot sales - unfortunately one grey and one burgundy, no black, but it's one of those things worth looking out for. I'd bet craft shops would have something similar in sheets.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - live music photography tutorial

I will have to try it out in my garden today.

Dan - San Diego

Boo said:

Daniel Barnett said:

I have been "playing" around with the Office Depot Black Foam Core
boards, trying to replicate what others have done with flowers and
other inanimate objects, [snip] What would you try to
get that rich black back ground?

Click to expand...

Do you mean shots like these:







If so, in each of these cases I didn't use any background, other
than what was there naturally. But in each case I did shoot them
facing the same direction in my garden and at the same time of day

• two were in exactly the same spot. They were all shot late

afternoon with low sun (a fabulous time of day to take photos) and
taken facing towards the sun (the poppy at a slight angle) and from
very low. With the yellow poppy I simply wiggled about until the
flower was approximately in front of a dark patch of a fern in
shadow behind it.

I have a walled garden and late in the afternoon for about an hour,
the ground in the garden is in shadow from the wall, but the plants
are still in full sun. I simply duck down low to the flower and
shoot towards the sun using a fully wide aperture. If you spot
meter for the details on the flower and ignore the rest of the
scene and frame it tightly, the exposure will allow the detail of
the flower to be recorded, but the wide aperture and shallow depth
of field prevent the background being developed enough - as you can
see in the top tulip, the leaves below start to disappear as they
get more distant from the flower - try a few at different bracketed
exposures and see which you like best. You will almost certainly
find that some brght spots of your background may show through, so
you simply clone/retouch these out if they spoil the view for you.

If you use a black board, as I did for this one, same flower as
above, taken at the same time, but facing the opposite direction,
tilt the board downwards so that it doesn't reflect light back to
the lens, which it will if it's parallel to the lens. With this
one, I deliberately stood and made a shadow over the flower as the
direct sunlight was far too harsh, I wanted a more subtle light on
this one.



Another tip for your arsenal is to have a piece of screwed up then
smoothed out aluminium foil stuck on a piece of card to reflect
light back to shadow areas of the flower/subject where you have
harsh shadows - works a treat - although I didn't use it on any of
these shots.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - live music photography
tutorial

Click to expand...

Thnak you for all of your replies...

Dan

Daniel Barnett said:

I have been "playing" around with the Office Depot Black Foam Core
boards, trying to replicate what others have done with flowers and
other inanimate objects, and have not been fetting the results that
I want. I usually get a very gray board color, or you can see a
slight reflection of the flash. I was about three feet away from
the board and I was using indoor lighting. What would you try to
get that rich black back ground?

If you could give me basic lighting tecniques and camera settings
that would be a great place to experiment with, that would be
greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Dan - San Diego

Click to expand...

Boo,

I've seen lot's of good pictures from your hand (and also still remeber the struggle you went through at the end of last year after just buying the 602) but your first picture (the rose, i guess) really stunnes me. Very good work!!!! If it's possible, I would light up the grean leaves a little more to contrast the color of the rose, but that is a sidemark. I realy, raly enjoy this one! Compliments!

--
Regards,
Tom
(FinePix S602z)
http://clik.to/tomcee
http://www.pbase.com/tomcee

S602Z FAQ:
http://www.marius.org/fuji602faq.php

Join the FujiMugs!
http://www.fujimugs.com

TomCee said:

I've seen lot's of good pictures from your hand (and also still
remeber the struggle you went through at the end of last year after
just buying the 602)

Click to expand...

Thank you kindly. Yes, I did struggle for a while, I went through a phase of not getting pictures in focus. Some of it was a mental adjustment issue I think, I'd been using the 2800 which does produce really sharp vibrant images, the 602 is simply a different beast. On wide shots and landscapes the 2800 still beats the 602 - my husband and I took some similar photos yesterday and apart from resolution, some of his are better than mine. Hence I try and help 'newbies' myself to try and pay back for the help I got back then.

TomCee said:

but your first picture (the rose, i guess)
really stunnes me. Very good work!!!!

Click to expand...

It's actually a tulip. My mother brought some bulbs back from Switzerland last year and the flowers are stunning - they look like peonies - the buds were spherical like a peony bud as well.

TomCee said:

If it's possible, I would
light up the grean leaves a little more to contrast the color of
the rose,

Click to expand...

I did some where the leaves were more visible, but the flower wasn't as good, so it was a pay off. The leaves were quite a bit shorter than the flower stem, so not immediately adjacent to the flower head, which was huge, about 6" across.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - live music photography tutorial

Boo said:

You can buy photo background paper that is flock sprayed just like
velvet which kills reflections - buying big rolls for studio work
is expensive, but I've picked up two rolls on separate occasions at
car boot sales - unfortunately one grey and one burgundy, no black,
but it's one of those things worth looking out for. I'd bet craft
shops would have something similar in sheets.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's exactly what I saw at our local Hobby Lobby store. What I did was purchase Adorama's 5-in-1 reflector kit. It is a 22" collapsible ring covered in a translucent fabric and a reversible cover with each side in a different finish: black, white, silver and gold. This fits over the ring and zips closed to give four different choices of reflectors (plus the translucent). However the black and white finishes are too shiney to be used for backgrounds so I bought some very inexpensive, dull black and white polyester fabric and a long zipper and sewed a new cover. I've not had the oportunity to try it out but I suspect it will work as well or better than the foam core. The best part is, it fits in an 8" zipper bag that came with the kit so it's very portable. However only the origianal reflector cover or the one I made fits inside along with the collapsible ring, not both.

Boo those are awesome shots! I don't know how you managed to get them so sharp especially taken outdoors. Do you use 6MP or 3MP when you shoot?

Cassandra

--
http://www.pbase.com/cassandra

Boo wrote:

You can also check out the hardware store or hobby shop for flocking spray in an airisol can. It is used to line drawers in jewelry amd music boxes etc. You can also use sheets of white or cream colored cardboard to reflect soft light and a white umbrella to soften things up a bit.

NeilV

Boo said:

You can buy photo background paper that is flock sprayed just like
velvet which kills reflections - buying big rolls for studio work
is expensive, but I've picked up two rolls on separate occasions at
car boot sales - unfortunately one grey and one burgundy, no black,
but it's one of those things worth looking out for. I'd bet craft
shops would have something similar in sheets.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - live music photography
tutorial

Click to expand...

Cassandra said:

Boo those are awesome shots! I don't know how you managed to get
them so sharp especially taken outdoors. Do you use 6MP or 3MP
when you shoot?

Click to expand...

Thank you kindly, I usually shoot at 6MF and nowadays with soft sharpening. All of those flower ones were taken late in the day, the light is beautiful then - low but golden, much more subtle than earlier in the day. The poppies are more problematic and less likely to be sharp as it has been breezy almost all the time lately and they are so delicate that they quiver all the time in the slightest air movement. I tried taking three backlit like that for the challenge, but after about 100 shots where a maximum of two were sharp in each one, I gave up.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - live music photography tutorial

Neil A. Viglione said:

You can also use sheets of white or
cream colored cardboard to reflect soft light and a white umbrella
to soften things up a bit.

Click to expand...

If you want to reflect light back, a piece of scrumpled, then smoothed out aluminium foil spray mounted onto some card makes an excellent free reflector - I keep a piece of creased foil folded in my camera bag, along with an assortment of plastic clips and some wire, there's nearly always something nearby to clip a piece onto to make a reflector and it takes up no space in a camera bag pocket.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - live music photography tutorial

Yes, poppies are among the most difficult flowers to photograph because of their delicate nature. Here's a shot I took in my garden earlier this Spring. I used black foam board for this one.



Cassandra

Boo said:

Thank you kindly, I usually shoot at 6MF and nowadays with soft
sharpening. All of those flower ones were taken late in the day,
the light is beautiful then - low but golden, much more subtle than
earlier in the day. The poppies are more problematic and less
likely to be sharp as it has been breezy almost all the time lately
and they are so delicate that they quiver all the time in the
slightest air movement. I tried taking three backlit like that for
the challenge, but after about 100 shots where a maximum of two
were sharp in each one, I gave up.

Click to expand...

Cassandra said:

Yes, poppies are among the most difficult flowers to photograph
because of their delicate nature. Here's a shot I took in my garden
earlier this Spring. I used black foam board for this one.

Click to expand...

They're lovely, they're so delicate, they don't even look real, almost ike tissue paper. It must have been still that day!

The yellow ones I've done are a bit more substantial, although they only last about 24 hours or so and have four overlapping petals, the bud opens one day and the next it is flat open and by evening, the petals are gone. They're a weed actually and seed themselves in every crack in the paving etc., but I quite like them, so where it doesn't matter, I let them grow. I have a big clump growing out of the wall by by front door, I have no idea how they survive, they grow in the crack between the stones. They provide a lovely splash of colour. I like to see red ones growing in the fields.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - live music photography tutorial