I have recently bought a nikon d7100. I shot a portrait shoot on it a few days ago but the background looks grey in the pictures, so much so that i have had to edit it out in photoshop. I do not want to have to do this as it's quite time consuming. Could anyone give me any advice on what settings the camera should be on. I am using 3 250watt lights also.
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my white backdrop turns out grey in photos
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This^
are they continuous lights?
If so, it'll be difficult, they're not really bright enough for people.
There are many threads in lighting re white background shots, have a search - it's trickier than you think.
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this is a very common issue but also a very common bonus!
with a white backdrop, they simply reflect the ambient light, if you want them white, light them with white light
if you want blue, ...well you can guess.
if you want them grey, don't light them at all, as you have found
the only way around this is to meter manually and use settings for the background, but your subject will be completely burnt out, and if you just meter for the a white surface, then the camera will expose it as a grey area as auto metering assumes that the world is 18% grey or something, and exposes appropriately.
with a white backdrop, they simply reflect the ambient light, if you want them white, light them with white light
if you want blue, ...well you can guess.
if you want them grey, don't light them at all, as you have found
the only way around this is to meter manually and use settings for the background, but your subject will be completely burnt out, and if you just meter for the a white surface, then the camera will expose it as a grey area as auto metering assumes that the world is 18% grey or something, and exposes appropriately.
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Take a shot of the background on its own, look at the histogram on the back of the camera. The large peak will probably be about 1/3 from the RHS. Keep shooting increasing the exposure by increasing the aperture or deceasing the shutter speed until the top of the top of the peak gets near the RHS.
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At which point you will also notice that you will have overexposed the subject.
Unless you are shooting the subject right on the backdrop then the only way to get a white background and a correctly exposed subject is to light them separately.
Zack Arias has an excellent detailed tutorial on this.
http://zackarias.com/for-photographers/photo-resources/white-seamless-tutorial-part-1-gear-space/
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At which point you will also notice that you will have overexposed the subject.
this
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At which point you will also notice that you will have overexposed the subject.
The OP was asking how he ensures he gets a white background, I have found using the histogram the most reliable way of producing a white background. Obviously the subject would be overexposed if you put them between the background lights and the background but why would you do that.
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Just re-read your original post.
Given the OP has just bought a DSLR, and can't understand why he is getting a grey backdrop when shooting with a white - at what level do you think his knowledge of lighting is ?
You don't state anywhere in your post that the background needs lighting separately, the concept of splitting background and subject lighting with different ratios. All you said was keep upping the exposure until the background is white. You may have got his exposure correct on the background this way by altering the camera but you would also have affected the exposure on the subject at the same time unless you had told them to reduce any subject lighting by a corresponding number of stops.
Sometimes you have to remember that the person asking the question has less knowledge than you, and almost certainly can't read your mind via the medium of fora posts.
Just as a point of note also that when using studio lighting in a dark environment modifying the shutter speed rarely has any effect on the brightness of the backdrop as the burst of the studio light is all delivered in a very short period of time - and you need to keep the shutter speed under the maximum sync speed of the camera body (safely 1/160, and up to about 1/250 on some DSLR bodies - I'm ignoring leaf shutters on MF camera for the purposes of this given the OPs kit). Because as I'm sure you know you will be shooting in Manual.
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Phil - we do...
Unlikely that 250W lights are continuous, but I take your point. You are correct until we hear back it limits what more useful information can be added.
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You're right, he did say that (and I asked for clarification before), my guess is a flash kit (ebay) in which case it should be easy for the OP to do (provided he has enough space).
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