White background again!

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Steve T

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STEVE
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What is this all about, I don't normally bother with white backgrounds for my stuff but I thought I would see if I could get it right in a small space. This is in a corner on a bench 5ft long x 4ft wide. Tight into the corner is a soft box with a decent continuous cfl bulb of 125 watts. At the other end is another soft box with a 300 ws studio flash set to 1/16 power. The first shot below is the studio flash soft box on it's own, the second is the continuous soft box on its own and the third shot is both at once! They were all at 1/4 shutter speed @ F8.





I ran the middle shot through canons picture style editor RGB colour thing and the background is the best I have achieved so far, almost spot on @ 252 to 255 all over apart from one spot @ 242. The pics are as shot just sized for image shack and here. I know you shouldn't mix light sources but to be honest the colour is pretty accurate ?? on that last shot.

I have not the faintest idea why this seems to have worked so well in such a small area, I think it's because the background is lit by the soft box and none of that light is touching the front of the image. That is lit by the flash which is obviously hitting the background as well. So why is the flash not overpowering the continuous light:thinking:

Help!
 
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Sorry about the pics I'm having a job uploading them properly.
 
Well, you've got your studio flash outputting just 20Ws and you're using a shutter speed of 1/4 sec to make the most of your continuous lights, so it's working for you - but 1/4 sec exposures just aren't practical for live subjects and/or hand held cameras...
 
I am astounded at how much better these settings are working Garry, I was about to give up the ghost on white backgrounds with flash but this is a doddle. I've watched countless vids on utube, read tutorials, all the usual things noobs try but never come across a recommendation for doing this. What I can't understand is why either one on its own looks crap but together its spot on white? If I can get Image shack to work I'll post an examples.
 
I'll be intrigued to see the images once you get them up.

The normal rule of thumb for white backgrounds is that you want the background illuminating 1/2 to 1 stop more then the foreground, and with your flash set to 20Ws, I wouldn't be surprised if the continuous lights where therefore easily exposing 1 stop more, and not forgetting that you'd also have any other ambient light adding to the scene at those exposure settings..

I'll await the photos :)
 
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Best advice I can give is concentrate on the product, then blow the back as best you can, then pp the rest, you will NEVER get a perfect white background, well I never say never, but the time involved is counter productive when it can be fixed with pp

Tip of the day, to avoid the base of the product giving a shadow, shoot through a glass sheet about 8inches off the deck, this can however un anchor the image, shadow or glossy effect can be added later.

80,000 images later we still haven't fully managed it :)
 
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