Table of Contents

Subject to background distance
Umbrella spill on background
Over the shoulder glow
Most versatile background
High key background light
Saturated background light

Subject to background distance

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What's the idea distance between your subject and backdrop? Also I am just setting up a home studio set for the 1st time, Other than lights and camera equipment what else would you recommend to have on hand and what basic but solid suggestions for a beginner do you have?
Thanks
Mark

Dear Mark:
For what most of us call standard studio portrait work, you should work with your subject at least 6 feet away from the background. There is a reason for this. In most cases you do not want the main light to fall upon the background with any significance. In high key work this is of course not an issue. When doing darker or low key work, any light spilling onto the background from your main light will lighten up your background which may not be desirable. If you wish your background to be more in focus you can diminish the distance between them but you will now be pouring more light onto the background. The better way to control focus is with varying quantities of light and different apertures.
We see so many novice photographers showing bridal portraits against black seamless but of course the seamless is not black at all. It is a shade of gray because so much of the light is striking the background. In this case the subject/main light combination must be moved away from the background. This will maintain the lighting on the subject but reduce it on the background. If your subject is already 5 or 6 feet from the black seamless and it is not practical to move them further from the background then the same thing can be accomplished by moving the main light in closer. Many of my students in class have a hard time believing that moving the main light in closer to the subject will actually make the background darker but it really is true. Think about it. This is not difficult to grasp if you just look at it logically. If you half the distance from main light to the subject you have increased the light on the subject by 2 f stops. Have you increased the light on the black seamless? Yes you have. Is it 2 f stops? No it is not. It is considerably less. So when you change your aperture to make your subject record correctly, you will now be underexposing the background thereby making it appear darker than before.
A strong recommendation. Learn a little more prior to spending a fortune on hardware. Equipment is a means to an end but it will not make you a better photographer. You will however need a really good flash meter such as the Minolta Flash Meter V, IV or even an older III. As long as they test out well when checked by a service person you are ok. A great meter is your life blood of accurate exposures combined with proper metering techniques.

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I am a part-time wedding photographer. I practice formal portraiture on friends and family in individual and group settings. At this point I am working on my ability to control the lighting setup.
My current setup is a single Photogenic power light with an umbrella (45" white which you can bounce or shoot-through) for my main and a P22 (approx 3'x6') light form silver reflector for fill. For my background I have a gray muslin. As you know it is difficult to control light spill with an umbrella. I have an opportunity to get a 16" reflector with a diffuser and barn doors. With this modifier I should be able to control the light spill on my background fairly well. My concern is the quality of the light. Would this light be too harsh for women and children?
Regards,
Chris

Dear Chris:
In your question, you say that it is difficult to control light spill with an umbrella. This is just not true if you understand a little about the science of light. The location of your umbrella relative to your subject and to your background is what will allow you plenty of control. Let’s say that your umbrella is about 4 feet from your subject. Now without changing the distance between the umbrella and the subject, move this 2 piece unit farther away from your background and toward your camera position. Remember, you have not changed a thing with regard to the umbrella’s distance to the subject. You just move the two of them to a greater distance from the background. Now what did you just do? You darkened the background relative to the subject. You did not change the lighting on the subject at all. You simply changed the quantity of light light that was falling on the background. Here is another scenario. Your subject is 5 1/2 feet from the background and your umbrella is 8 feet from the subject. What will happen if you move the umbrella in closer to the subject? Answer: The background will become darker. Sounds wrong don’t it? Here is why the background will look darker in your portraits when you do this. As you move the light source in toward your subject, you are also moving it in closer to the background. The reduction in distance from umbrella to subject is far more significant than the reduction in distance from the umbrella to the background. When you bring your umbrella in closer to the subject you must now re-meter and and use a smaller aperture. In your portraits the subject will still look correct but your background will now look darker. Yes you decreased the distance from the umbrella to the background but not as significantly as the distance from the umbrella to the subject. If you use this principle of light fall off you can control how much light falls on your background no matter what type of light you are using.
With regard to your question about the 16” reflector with barn doors and a diffuser, this is simply one size of light source. Why would you want to limit yourself to a single look? Expand to a wide array of light source sizes. Smaller sizes for character studies or dramatic effects with models, larger sizes for elderly ladies who don’t need their character lines emphasized and perhaps medium sizes for family groupings or individual portraits. Light is for using. Use it to it’s full potential. It’s sort of like the brain. We only use a small percentage of what is available. Use more of the brain and use more light sources sizes and be a creative and versatile photographer who really knows how to boss his lights around!
You don’t have to buy a dozen different size umbrellas, soft boxes or reflectors. A free standing diffusion panel with your barn door equipped light behind it will provide awesome control as to the quantity and quality of light. It’s like having a thousand different types of lights available to you all at a moments notice. It’s one and only draw back is that it takes up a little more floor space than a light on a stand but not really that much more than that large umbrella that you are currently using. You are already using a large panel as a fill light so this may come very easy for you. Try using your umbrella behind the camera as your fill light and a diffusion panel as your main light. Consider it and you may just discover the most beautiful, organic quality of light with the most control available anywhere without spending a lot of cash on a multitude of devices.

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Background lighting facinates me more than subject lighting. One elusive technique for me has been the glow over the shoulders going quickly to black behind the head. Is this simply achieved with gobos, or is it more a material issue.
Soren

Hello Soren:
The glow you speak about is something that I do all the time. It is easily achieved with a background light with a small reflector attached to it. The light may be colored with a gel if you like. The strobe head is positioned behind the subject and near the background. The secret to a nice uniform glow is to keep the flash head perpendicular to the background. If you angle the head up you begin to have an elipticle shape to the glow which is not desirable. Your lights should be balanced so you get what you see. Less is usually better than more with this technique. Move the head up and down with your light stand until you see a gentle glow over the shoulders. Keep just a bit more light over the shoulder nearer to the main light to keep the attention on the face. If you put more light over the shadow side shoulder you will draw away from the face.

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Scott:
I am just setting up a studio in my home to photograph my family and pets. Can you recommend a starting place for a backdrop? I'd like to get just one to start that will give me the most flexibility, and do not know if I should get paper, canvas, muslin, etc. Any other advice along these lines would also be appreciated!
Craig

Dear Craig:
Backgrounds are one of the topics that one could ramble on about all day. Since you want a single, versatile background I have to recommend a painted muslin. The size is usually about 9 or 11 feet wide and around 25 to 30 feet long. Muslins are really great because they are rugged, you can ball them up and throw them in a corner when you are finished with them, you can fold them, twist them, and drape them in a variety of ways. I light them with colored gels from a variety of angles ranging from top right, bottom right, top left, bottom left and combinations using multiple background lights at the same time. Check out my general portrait image gallery for some examples.
When you select a muslin, I recommend that you don’t make the mistakes that I made long ago when I bought my first ones. That is to get one that has a very busy and harsh pattern on it. Muslins painted in this way will become old in a short while and customers will find them to be really distracting. What I now recommend is that you select a muslin with a gentle pattern or design that is not harsh, contrasty or chunky. A softly flowing background will stand the test of time and is far less stressful to the eye.
In addition to the pattern or design, I also suggest that you consider a neutral gray muslin. One with no major color to it. This way, you have the creative option of lighting it with a world of different colors and it won’t argue with you because it is already a particular color. When it’s neutral, you can make it look just about any way your imagination can think of. Using colored gels can add exciting and different looks to your muslins depending on how you twist, pull or drape your muslin.
The quality of your muslin is also an important factor. There are various weights of muslin. There is a major background making company that usually makes it to the trade shows. They have a huge catalog with many really nice designs. Problem is that the muslins I have seen from them including the ones I bought myself have been thinner than most others that I have seen. They have also been narrower than others making them more difficult to use with a family or a bride who has a large train. I like a muslin to be as wide as possible. It should also be seamed on the edges rather than left to unravel. The best thing to do is to go to a trade show and compare one vendor to another. After a little looking around you will begin to see the differences in thickness and workmanship. It’s something you will live with for quite a while so choose carefully.

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About how much light is too much when lighting a background to achieve a high-key white background effect? Does too much light here cause flare problems? Is this an effect which may be desirable?
Thanks,
Frank

Hi Frank
High key white seamless is not that difficult as long as you understand the physics behind it. I don't want to confuse you with too many numbers so if you can remember that meters think in terms of making your photographs look like a gray card, you will find it easy to understand. Let's assume that we take a meter reading with the dome of our meter facing the main light (from the position of our subject) and the taking aperture is determined to be f8. We now need to take another reading. This time we should take a reflective reading off of the white seamless background. The correct way to explain what you are wanting is to say that you want an 8 to 1 ratio. Now this ratio means that the background appears 8 time brighter than a gray card. This will give you white without detail. The problem is that it takes valuable time to take meter readings in different ways to determine what your values are. With this in mind, let me give you a simple shortcut that will quickly provide precisely the same result without changing your meter to reflective. If you were to set up this situation so that the readings were where they needed to be to achieve that 8 to 1 white, you could take a reading at the position of the seamless with the dome pointing toward the front where your subject is and quickly be able to determine if your lighting is correct or not. To the amazement of many, an 8 to 1 white without detail seamless is achieved with only 1 and 1/3 stops more light than your taking aperture. What this means is that if your taking aperture is f8, then your reading AT the seamless with the dome pointed toward the front should be f11 and 1/3. This always comes as a shock to many who have heard countless platform speakers suggest readings anywhere from 2 to 3 f stops over the taking aperture. When you do this, you have white without detail for sure but at the expense of the contrast and blacks in your image. To use this much light on the white seamless will literally create lens flare. Not in the usual way but as a reduction in contrast with muddiness in the blacks.
It's important to light your seamless from a distance to aid in even illumination. Lighting it from too close will give you areas that are far too bright and other areas that are too dark because of the rapid fall off when using a light source too close to the background.

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How do you get a red colored gel on a black background so deep and intense? When I do it, it turns out pinkish.
Amal

Dear Amal:
The answer is quite simple. Don't light the background with your main and fill lights. What you see as pink light is due to the white light from your lights striking the same area as the red gelled light. White light plus red = pink. Right? Move your main and fill light AND subject away from your background and you will see a big improvement. Move your main and fill closer to your subject at the same time and you will see an even bigger improvement. This is why you should work with your subject at least 6 feet from the background and the main light in as close as possible without it being in the frame. I use my diffusion panel in close (less than 2 feet typically) just barely out of frame. I can then move the light head back and forth to control the quality of light reaching the subject withtout ever moving the panel. Awesomely controlable!

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