- Using Studio Flash (Called Strobes)
- What to Do When You Can't Turn Your Strobe Power Down Any Further
- Firing Your Studio Strobe Wirelessly
- Softening Harsh Studio Strobes
- Where to Position Your Main Light
- Adding a Hair Light
- Getting a Different Look Without Moving the Lights
- Want Softer, More Even Light? Feather It!
- Studio Backgrounds
- Using a Pop-Up Collapsible Background
- One Background, Three Different Looks
- Getting Super-Saturated Background Color
- Reflectors: When to Use Silver or White and Where to Position It
- Using Grid Spots
- How to Use a Light Meter
- Which Mode Should You Shoot In?
- How to Set a Custom White Balance In-Camera
- Rim-Light Profile Silhouettes Made Easy
- Using a Fan for Windblown Effects
- The Advantage of Shooting Tethered
- Using a Gray Card to Nail Your Color
- Don't Light Your Whole Subject Evenly
- How to Light a Couple or Small Group
- Big, Beautiful, Wrapping Light
- Edgy Lighting for Athletes
- Hurley-Look Headshot Lighting
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Getting Super-Saturated Background Color
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Want some really vivid, punchy colors as your background? Start on a background of black seamless paper (I know, it sounds weird that we start creating vivid colors with a black background, but believe it or not, this is the easiest way), and then position a light on the background. Now, for a background light you can use another one of the same strobes you already have (so, basically, you’re going to need a second strobe if you want to light the background, or there’s the trick you can pull to use your off-camera flash as a background light that we talked about a couple pages ago). Once you’ve got your black seamless paper in place and a second strobe (or off-camera flash) positioned behind your subject, aiming at the background, the trick is to put a vivid-colored gel (a translucent piece of plastic) over the front of your flash, and when your background flash fires, the color it produces is rich, vivid, and surprisingly colorful. You can get these gels (made by Lee or Rosco) from B&H Photo for around $6.50 for a 20x24" sheet (choose really vivid colors—reds, yellows, greens, etc.).
Lighting a White Background
To get it to look solid white, you have to light it—usually just one or two lights will do it, and they don’t have to be very high-powered strobes. There’s also a little trick you’ll want to use to make sure that the light does make the background look that nice solid white, but without blowing out the background so much that the back light starts to wash out the edges of your subject: use a light meter. You want the background to be around one stop brighter than the light on your subject. So if your meter showed f/11 for your subject, you want the background to read one stop brighter (like f/16).