Shooting with a Black background

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dow

dow

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Jun 25, 2009
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Location
Boerne, TX, USA
I was looking at Eric Anderson's webpage and was wondering how I would go about shooting my pens with the black background and reflective surface like he's using. I've sent him a message asking about his setup, but thought I'd try here as well to look for advice.

Any idea how I'd do this? I'm shooting a Canon 20d with a good Metz flash and good tripod, but I haven't set up any kind of light kit or anything like that.

Thanks,
Dow
 
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The same way I shoot all of mine! Use a light tent with black backdrop. Then use compact flourescent lights. Then use a piece of black acrylic of the reflection. Forget the flash.
 
Yep.. what Curtis said. Forget the flash.

On-camera flash units can be harsh and usually meant to use at some distance
away from the camera. You want to use a steady light source that you can
meter on, and if you can diffuse it so the lighting is has softer edges, that's
going to give you a more pleasing look.

From the quick look I took at his website, it appears (from looking at the
reflection) that he is using at least one soft box. This is a large tent or box
that contains a flash unit, but the light has to pass through a diffusion
material before it comes out and hits the subject. This give a pleasing light
and reflections aren't as harsh. He might be using a good handheld meter
or shooting and deleting till he gets what he's looking for. But you can be
sure it isn't a pop-up flash.

Diffusion material can be as simple as a plastic shower curtain or a piece
of rip-stop nylon.. it spreads the light around. Even parchment paper over
your flash can help spread the light so that it isn't so concentrated.
 
Acrylic Reflection

Where do you get a piece of Black Acrylic you're referring to...
I build a tent and get good white background shots using a GRAY CARD for settings...
I'd really like to get a pure black background without using photoshop...
Thanks
Ed
 
Ed,

I notice you are in Austin. If you want to make a trip down to San Marcos for a little shop visit, I can hook you up wtih some extra I have. I don't want to ship it though. While here, if you want, I can demonstrate how I do my CA finish, that is, if you need any help. Shoot me a PM if you are interested.
 
Ed, I highly recommend that you take Curtis up on his offer. He's a heck of a nice guy and knows lots about pens. He's got a great shop, too.

Back on topic, I asked Eric what he was doing, and he said,

Builderguy said:
My photo setup is very simple. Here are the "components":

1. A cardboard box with most of the sides and top cut out, and the cutouts covered with tissue paper or very thin wrapping paper, like you find in gift bags. This is more or less a light filter so that the lighting is not so harsh.

2. Black polished granite 12"x12" tile from Home Depot. The style is Absolute Black. This is what I set the pens on top of to get the reflection.

3. Desk lamp and sometimes another bedside table lamp.

4. Black sheet

I set the tile inside the box with the front and back box flaps open, so it more or less looks like a tunnel. I hang the sheet about 2 feet behind the box.

I turn all the light off in the room so that the only light source is my lamp(s). I have a basic point and shoot Canon digital camera which I set on macro and turn off the flash.

Then I just move the lights around until I like the look and shoot pics. You must rest the camera on something because it will have a very slow shutter speed and be very blurry if moved.

That's about it. If I can figre out how to post a photo of my setup I will do it. I hope I have described it well enough. Let me know if you have any questions.
Click to expand...
 
In this case , Not necessarily in all cases. You can probably use a mirror for the bottom piece as well. as long as what it reflects to the camera is nothing but black. or even a piece of clear glass if it was set on black cloth. The camera is helping make the background even blacker in this case because it is exposing for the pen. If you do not adjust for this your picture will actually come out not looking as good as you are waning. the pen will be over exposed or washed out a bit and you will see more detail in the background than you want. you will have to play around with shutter speeds or camera settings until you get the effect you are looking for because the Auto settings on the camera will tent to fight you on that a bit. I think a mirror will give a sharper reflection than you see in his photo while a sheet of plastic will break it up a bit. Personally I prefer the hazy reflection as it is not as distracting from the pen itself.
Take your time as you play with this and try different things. you can learn a lot about how your camera records things with creative set ups like this.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all of the advice Curtis and everybody else. Now all I need to do is find more time. It seems that I need about 35 hours a day, and all I can manage is about 28, lol.
 
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