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New to macro, tips for getting black background

Started 6 months ago | Questions thread
Rodger in Edmonton
Rodger in Edmonton Veteran Member • Posts: 4,599
Re: New to macro, tips for getting black background

Dann-Oh wrote:

ken_in_nh wrote:

Outdoors or indoors? For indoor shooting, I bought a 16x20 or so painting canvas, added a base to it, and hung a black shirt over it. Outdoors, I far, far prefer natural backgrounds.

I have been doing a little bit of both. I just got a piece of black foamcore to try to use in the field.

Indoors:

Buy a few $ 1 tackboards from the Dollar store and light paint the flower in a dark area.

Apply the inverse square law and put the subject far enough in fron that it will be black as night and if your light  panting strays, it can be pulled down in post easily because  " 1/16" the light falls at this distance as it were compared to the subject.

You can uses flash and it works but it does not have the same feel and charm

The easiest way outside it to follow the same inverse square law and set the flash to illuminate the flower and little beyond. Yo get that jet black Nat Geo ant pic look like the above pix but a little more uniform.

If the goal is to isolate the flower - why not also use shallow DOF - it has great charm too.

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Best Regards, Rodger
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