Grey background

[craigahannan]

Hi everyone, i am brand new to photography, i am self employed and attempting to take my own product photographs, i have an ok camera, "canon eos 90d kit" and using a white backdrop with two glowpad lights from essentialphoto uk, i think they are rated around 350k (that doesnt really mean anything to me but hope you guys know what i mean) i am shooting quite small items mainly pendant necklaces. The problem is i always always get a grey background, then when i try to edit in post production the subject becomes too bright and looks very unnatural, any tips on what i am doing wrong or how i can correct this would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[GreenNinja67]

Sounds like you need extra lights to light the background as at the moment it is underexposed.

2 lights for the background to help out the 2 lights on the subject.

Welcome to the world of lighting.

 

[Nod]

I'm guessing that you're using one of the semi-automatic modes (aperture or shutter priority) or even fully automatic. If I'm right, the camera's meter will be trying to expose for the whole scene and since much of that is white, it's under exposing. If you look at the exposure that the camera is trying to shoot at and use a longer exposure, the subject will be lighter and the background will be closer to white.
Jewellery can be a nightmare to light BTW!
Might be worth asking the same question in the lighting part of the forum or asking a moderator to move it there for you (hit the Report button and explain why, the mods here are [usually!!!) quite obliging to reasonable requests.)

 

[Marc1548]

I'm guessing that you're using one of the semi-automatic modes (aperture or shutter priority) or even fully automatic. If I'm right, the camera's meter will be trying to expose for the whole scene and since much of that is white, it's under exposing. If you look at the exposure that the camera is trying to shoot at and use a longer exposure, the subject will be lighter and the background will be closer to white.
Jewellery can be a nightmare to light BTW!
Might be worth asking the same question in the lighting part of the forum or asking a moderator to move it there for you (hit the Report button and explain why, the mods here are [usually!!!) quite obliging to reasonable requests.)

This is quite correct All camera light meters average ambient light for 50% Grey. normally they do a pretty good job for average scenes, but with predominantly white scenes such as yours or snow landscapes for another example, you would need to compensate by over exposing a stop or two. with predominantly black scenes you would have to compensate the other way by under exposing to get true blacks.

 

[craigahannan]

marc1548 thats great knowledge, i use white and black a lot and have trouble with both

 

[craigahannan]

I'm guessing that you're using one of the semi-automatic modes (aperture or shutter priority) or even fully automatic. If I'm right, the camera's meter will be trying to expose for the whole scene and since much of that is white, it's under exposing. If you look at the exposure that the camera is trying to shoot at and use a longer exposure, the subject will be lighter and the background will be closer to white.
Jewellery can be a nightmare to light BTW!
Might be worth asking the same question in the lighting part of the forum or asking a moderator to move it there for you (hit the Report button and explain why, the mods here are [usually!!!) quite obliging to reasonable requests.)

where would i find the exposure setting on the camera ? i have been watching a lot of videos about iso and apertures and shutter speeds, would the exposure come under one of these settings ?

 

[Bebop]

where would i find the exposure setting on the camera ? i have been watching a lot of videos about iso and apertures and shutter speeds, would the exposure come under one of these settings ?

Changing ISO, aperture and shutter speed all change the exposure.

You can increase exposure by..
Raising the ISO (always a good idea to keep ISO low if possible)
Slowing the shutter speed (shutter remains open longer to let more light in - may need tripod for slow shutter speeds)
Widening your aperture so it lets more light in (smaller f number = wider aperture, and aperture also affect depth of field - how much of your subject is in focus)

If you are using aperture priority or shutter priority, you can use exposure compensation - turn it to the + to tell your camera that you want it brighter than it is metering for.

 

[Nod]

where would i find the exposure setting on the camera ? i have been watching a lot of videos about iso and apertures and shutter speeds, would the exposure come under one of these settings ?

Sorry, I'm not a Canon user so I'm not sure how to see the information. If you look in the camera's manual (almost certainly available on-line if you don't have a paper copy), you'll find out how to see the information and how to change the settings.

 

[craigahannan]

Changing ISO, aperture and shutter speed all change the exposure.

You can increase exposure by..
Raising the ISO (always a good idea to keep ISO low if possible)
Slowing the shutter speed (shutter remains open longer to let more light in - may need tripod for slow shutter speeds)
Widening your aperture so it lets more light in (smaller f number = wider aperture, and aperture also affect depth of field - how much of your subject is in focus)

If you are using aperture priority or shutter priority, you can use exposure compensation - turn it to the + to tell your camera that you want it brighter than it is metering for.

so would it be best to use a fully manual mode to be able to change these settings ?

 

[craigahannan]

one other thing if i slow the shutter speed to let more light in can i have an aperture setting that will have the whole shot in focus, i.e nothing out of focus in the background or around the main subject while still allowing enough light in to stop the greying that i am getting ?

 

[Faldrax]

one other thing if i slow the shutter speed to let more light in can i have an aperture setting that will have the whole shot in focus, i.e nothing out of focus in the background or around the main subject while still allowing enough light in to stop the greying that i am getting ?

Yes, you reduce the aperture (EG f/8 -> f/11) to increase depth of field (IE Get more of the image in focus), then reduce the shutter speed to compensate (EG 1/200 -> 1/100).
You will hear about 'stops' quite a lot when talking about exposure and shutter, aperture and ISO values.
A 'stop' is a halving or doubling of the amount of light.
For ISO and Shutter, a 'stop' is a halving or doubling the value.
For Aperture the numbers are a bit odd, and the simplest thing is just to learn the relevant numbers
The common whole stops are;
f/2.8 - f/4 - f/5.6 - f/8 - f/11
To keep an constant exposure, if you increase one of aperture, shutter or ISO by 1 stop, you need to make a corresponding 1 stop decrease in the others - but that can be 1 stop and no change, 1/3 stop and 2/3 stop, etc. (cameras typically allow you to make adjustments in increments of 1/3 stop).

 

[Bebop]

If you're just starting out, it may be best to use aperture priority. You probably want a fairly good depth of field, so choose a large f number. If you set the ISO to say 200 and set aperture to f/11 or f/16. Too large an f number can degrade the image quality too, so I personally wouldn't go above f/16. I expect it will give you a slow shutter speed so you may need a tripod. You can then use exposure compensation to make it slightly over expose compared to what your camera thinks you want (to make the grey white). Some cameras will allow you to use auto ISO and others won't. You get best image quality with low ISO.

Usually on Canon cameras in Aperture priority, one of the dials will be for setting the aperture and the other will change the exposure compensation.

The manual for your 90D can be found here - you can look up aperture priority and exposure compensation https://www.canon.co.uk/support/con...gital_slr/eos-90d.html?type=manuals&language=

I should mention I don't do product photography and lighting is definitely not my area of expertise, but these are just the basics of getting the right exposure.

I personally use Manual because I feel more in control with it, but many stick to aperture or shutter priority depending on what they're shooting e.g. sports you might choose shutter priority, but if you want a shallow depth of field you might choose aperture priority. Priority being what is most important to you. You are always bound by the constraints of ISO, shutter speed and aperture whichever mode you choose.

 

[sk66]

I'm guessing that you're using one of the semi-automatic modes (aperture or shutter priority) or even fully automatic. If I'm right, the camera's meter will be trying to expose for the whole scene and since much of that is white, it's under exposing. If you look at the exposure that the camera is trying to shoot at and use a longer exposure, the subject will be lighter and the background will be closer to white.

Except that fixing the BG exposure is causing the subject to be overexposed and look very unnatural...

 

[sk66]

This is not how I would normally go about things, but; I suggest that you use your computer monitor as your BG (displaying a white image).

You could also use software to cut out/replace the BG rather than adjusting the exposure (or selective exposure of BG only)... but I'm guessing that you would be quite dependent on the program to do it for you at this point (it won't always do a great job by itself).

 

[Marc1548]

I concur with everything that has been said regarding exposure, but lighting & product photography is a whole new ball game. Combining these two elements will really test your photography skills if you are just starting out. I would suggest looking at some YouTube tutorials on this genre of photography, or perhaps asking questions in the studio lighting section of this forum. I think it will really help you, especially now you have an understanding of exposure.

 

[Garry Edwards]

All of the answers above are helpful, but I'll try to go into a bit more detail.

We don't use this type of lighting for any kind of still photography, it's OK for video, or for applying makeup, or for Zoom calls, it's a very poor choice for product photography because it's a very blunt tool - you need to be able to control the size of the light source, and that means using flash with various light shapers (aka modifiers). So, if you can do so, I would return them and spend the money on better tools.

It's generally good to set the exposure manually, but that isn't your problem here. Your problem is that that you don't understand the basics of the Inverse Square law (the most basic rule of lighting). Basically, and roughly, if a light is twice as far away from a subject then 3/4 of the light is lost. Why does this matter?

It matters because you have two lights, and some bright spark told you that they both need to be in front of the subject, pointing at the subject (typical beginner mistake but that's a separate subject) and so the background, which is behind your subject, receives a lot less light and so photographs as grey.

The complicated way of dealing with this is to understand that you are in fact photographing two separate subjects (actual subject and background) and have at least one light (two are often needed) to light the background separately, but that would be very difficult with the lights that you have anyway.

The simpler approach is as suggested by @sk66

This is not how I would normally go about things, but; I suggest that you use your computer monitor as your BG (displaying a white image).

You could also use software to cut out/replace the BG rather than adjusting the exposure (or selective exposure of BG only)... but I'm guessing that you would be quite dependent on the program to do it for you at this point (it won't always do a great job by itself).

Just forget about having a white background at the time of the shot, and cut the subject out of the background on computer, with a bit of practice it's a very quick and simple process and always does a better job than trying to get the background right in camera. And, one of the reasons why it's better is that if you're not photographing on or against a white background your shots won't suffer from unwanted light bouncing on to the subject.

 

[troutfisher]

Could you ask the mods to move this thread to lighting and delete your new thread on the same subject,you will get people confused and frustrated as you will seem to be asking the same question twice

 

[ShinySideUp]

This is quite correct All camera light meters average ambient light for 50% Grey. normally they do a pretty good job for average scenes, but with predominantly white scenes such as yours or snow landscapes for another example, you would need to compensate by over exposing a stop or two. with predominantly black scenes you would have to compensate the other way by under exposing to get true blacks.

18% grey surely, or am I just getting confused with metering systems.

 

[Senojbor]

I'm not fully understanding but by grey do you mean shadows of your subject on your white background? (reposition subject and lights)
Or when exposed the white background is grey? (underexposed)
Either way it's easy to fix
The 90D is not just ok it is a very decent camera btw

 

[ancient_mariner]

18% grey surely, or am I just getting confused with metering systems.

You are correct.

If the OP is really stuck for lights & cash I'd suggest using one light on the background and the other on the jewellery with a reflector (i.e. silver foil or sheet of white paper) to bounce light back & fill shadows. Adjust the distances of lights to get the balance you want between BG and subject.

 

[Marc1548]

18% grey surely, or am I just getting confused with metering systems.

Quite correct 18% grey, or to be more specific it is a reflectance of light the meter is calibrated for. apologies for the confusion

 

[sk66]

18% grey surely, or am I just getting confused with metering systems.

Metering is typically based on 12-14% actually, because a typical/average scene reflects ~ 12.5% of light back. If you use an 18% card to meter from; a typical scene will underexpose ~ .5 stop (probably more with a DSLR).

18% reflectivity is perceived as 50% black or middle grey due to the logarithmic nature of human perception (half of a 90% white card reference). The original use was for printing, and then Ansel Adams declared it to be "zone V" in his exposure system (which was also largely about printing).
Some use an 18% gray card to simulate incidence metering (generally incorrectly). And any neutral grey reference can be used to set white balance accurately; the only reason grey is better than black/white for this is because it is much less likely to clip.

 

[Garry Edwards]

Metering is typically based on 12-14% actually, because a typical/average scene reflects ~ 12.5% of light back. If you use an 18% card to meter from; a typical scene will underexpose ~ .5 stop (probably more with a DSLR).

18% reflectivity is perceived as 50% black or middle grey due to the logarithmic nature of human perception (half of a 90% white card reference). The original use was for printing, and then Ansel Adams declared it to be "zone V" in his exposure system (which was also largely about printing).
Some use an 18% gray card to simulate incidence metering (generally incorrectly). And any neutral grey reference can be used to set white balance accurately; the only reason grey is better than black/white for this is because it is much less likely to clip.

Well, yes, but the OP is a beginner who is struggling to understand how to take basic product photos with zero knowledge and unsuitable equipment. The only reason that exposure has raised its ugly head is that he was trying (perfectly reasonably) to "correct" the exposure in PP.

His problem is with lighting, not exposure, not metering or anything else. My guess is that he may have given up on this thread and if so then I don't blame him.

 

[sk66]

Well, yes, but the OP is a beginner who is struggling to understand how to take basic product photos with zero knowledge and unsuitable equipment. The only reason that exposure has raised its ugly head is that he was trying (perfectly reasonably) to "correct" the exposure in PP.

Yeah, that's basically what I indicated in post 13....

His problem is with lighting, not exposure, not metering or anything else. My guess is that he may have given up on this thread and if so then I don't blame him.

Which is why I suggested the super simple white BG lighting method (bright field), or cutting it out.