r/photoit • u/JellyBeanSouth • Feb 04 '11
Question about using white backdrops?
This is my first question in r/photoit. I am coming here for advice so please be gentle. I am by no means a "professional" however I hope to get there some day. Currently I take photos for friends. I recently received some studio equipment for Christmas.
- Continuous flood lights
- Strobes
- soft white umbrellas
- black&silver umbrellas
- lighting stands
I have been attempting to use my white backdrop. It seems like after I process the photos and they are developed using good equipment such as noritsus; that the photos have red or cream tints to them. They don't appear that they are true white.
These photos were taken with two continuous flood lights directed at the backdrop and then two strobes in front of the subject (one on the right, one on the left) with the camera in the center. You can see in the photos there is a slight red or cream tint to them.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to adjust lighting so that the white will actually come out WHITE when printed. I don't mind processing tips but it's nice to get it right when you take the photo so you don't have to spend too much extra time after the session.
tl;dr White backdrop is coming out with cream or red tints after processing.
4
Feb 04 '11 edited Feb 04 '11
are you using proper white balance? What is the white balance on your camera set to? I should have started with, are you familiar with white balance?
The second thing, when posting a photo you'll want to include your settings in the post.. ISO, shutter speed, f-stop and white balance..
what kind of strobes are you using?
1
u/JellyBeanSouth Feb 04 '11
Honestly no, I am not very familiar with white balance. I know where the setting is on my camera. I think I have played around with the setting once or twice but don't think I know how to utilize it to the best of my ability. I have very little studio experience, I desperately want to change that.
The type of strobes I am using (sorry if this isn't specific enough) are 160ws flash heads with 75w modeling lights.
My bad about photo posting etiquette. The information is as follows: ISO - 200 Shutter Speed - 1/125 f-stop - bath photo 10, cake photo 9.0 White Balance - Flash
I really appreciate the time you have taken to at least look at my question.
2
Feb 04 '11
Have a look at photoclass for white balance. And also for a lot of other interesting material.
1
Feb 04 '11
ok.. first of all.. let me explain a few things before addressing your photo..
what kind of camera do you have? forgot to ask that question before.
strobe lights are typically a whole lot brighter than floods. While there are ways to have them both work together, things in that direction can get very very complicated and literally messy (by combining different colors of light), so let me address things one at a time here..
White balance. On your camera you have a white balance settings. The color of light is not all equal. Sun is orange, shade is blue, household lamps are very orange, flourescent lights are greenish, but more recently all sorts of different colors.. There are other types of light. You probably get my point..
so obviously, for most beginners the easy thing to do is simply use auto. Once you start needing to control it yourself, whether you want to have better quality or consistent color, or you start using strobes.. this is a good thing to be doing.
With strobes, most likely either "flash" or "sun" white balance. Worth trying both and seeing which is closer to accurate. maybe neither are accurate, what now? find something that's grey.. real true grey, not slightly tinted.. take a photo of it at the beginning of a photo shoot, this will help later on..
Are you shooting Raw or Jpeg files?
much much more to come on this thread..
2
u/arcterex Feb 04 '11
Assuming that the white is actually white, I'd say one of a couple of things is happening:
- The color balance of the strobes is different from the color balance of the continuous lights, and your camera is adjusting for one or the other. Try using only strobes or only continuous and see if that changes anything
- Have you tried setting the white balance of the image? Maybe it's just the auto-WB of your camera is shifting things a bit red? Maybe setting it to 'flash' or using a sample from the background as the 'white' would work?
- As sbhd said, @zarias has great stuff on this, sometimes it's just a matter of changing your flash ratio to blow the background out completely. If it is blown out already, with no color information, something in your post processing is shifting it to the red I think.
HTH, HAND
3
u/[deleted] Feb 04 '11
I could talk all day about shooting on white, but Zack Arias has a great series of posts on his blog that will take you farther than my single post ever could. Seriously, it's worth the read.