Backdrop lighting

hoganpoly

What would be the best way to light a white cloth backdrop, I have a d-lite 4 elinchrom set up with 2 lights, looking to shoot family groups,just finding that white is the hardest to light ,any help appreciated thx

ThOnda

With two lights, you won't light it at all. Forget about washed-out high-key shots, you would need at least two lights for the background.
You could cheat by sticking optically triggered flash gun behind the group of people, but that won't make it uniformly lit background.

hoganpoly

Would it be best to used the d-lite to light the backdrop and use strobes to light the subjects..

smelltheglove

I typed a reply and deleted and thought no sure borderfox will reply to this and have it perfect but hey sure let him just correct me;)

So I have lit with one

Example

One light high, pointing down, completely white & tiny room so bouncing light all over and bright white paper background, paper is easier I find.

with 2

Cloth background, lights high (about 5.5ft so my high compared to your gigantic high) and pointing downwards, brighten cloth in pp, as said I find cloth much harder to light never mind the creases.

with 4

4 lights, higher powered to front right and left and lower to light back right and left with a paper background no editing of background in pp

So basically it is possible although you may need pp in photoshop, more likely with cloth than paper, since I started using cloth my head has been wrecked and if I were to go back into portraits I would be getting paper in again but at the moment I am giving it a miss altogether tbh. The further away from the background the subject is the less shadow you will get but without a light behind the background will start to appear darker.

If you want to borrow a 3rd light to mess around with give me a shout I have one sitting there getting no use so you are welcome to borrow.

hoganpoly

Thanks for the help Rachel,might take you up on the offer of the spare light..

ThOnda

hoganpoly wrote: »

Would it be best to used the d-lite to light the backdrop and use strobes to light the subjects..

If you have bare flash guns without umbrellas or softboxes, there would be shadows from such hard light. Focus on people first, background the second.
Or just bring them outside and put them in front of a white wall ;-)

ValueInIreland

There is a simple video here that explains the basics of Hi-Key lighting. There are lots of others on YouTube also.

tommyh1977

Hi, what i did once using cloth was to tripod mount my speedlite and wirelessly trigger it from my 7D using its inbuilt speedlite transmitter. Worked out fine for a head shot but for full length would have failed to light the complete background. Of course used my Dlite4's for key and fill.