Question for pro photographers....

[cruz]

What would be the best neutral background when taking pictures of a purple or dark blue car? I want to take pictures outside away from direct sunlight using my digital camera.

[Bastardo]

I'd go for silver or light grey.

Remember to set the white balance on your camera according to the light you'll be using (sun, neon, cloudy day, ...)

[Terry Sumner]

I always prefer Kodak 18% gray! That is a light gray color that Kodak came up with many years ago and is the standard of light reflectance by which light meters are calibrated to. The best thing about this is that the background now does not radically alter the reading your camera's meter reads. In other words, if you use a background that is black, the meter sees very little light and wants to open the exposure. If you use a white background, the camera sees a lot of light and wants to close down the exposure. If you use 18% gray, the meter sees it just right and it's much easier to get the correct exposure. There are different views on this subject...12% vs liminescence vs refletance etc etc. But for the average shots, this 18% gray color will work just fine. Nowadays though, in digital cameras, if you have a white balance ability on your camera, you can just use that with whatever color you choose.

[Harry P.]

Simple answer: Use a background that contrasts with your subject.

Dark model-light background, light model-dark background.

[MikeMc]

I always prefer Kodak 18% gray! That is a light gray color that Kodak came up with many years ago and is the standard of light reflectance by which light meters are calibrated to. The best thing about this is that the background now does not radically alter the reading your camera's meter reads. In other words, if you use a background that is black, the meter sees very little light and wants to open the exposure. If you use a white background, the camera sees a lot of light and wants to close down the exposure. If you use 18% gray, the meter sees it just right and it's much easier to get the correct exposure. There are different views on this subject...12% vs luminescence vs reflectance etc etc. But for the average shots, this 18% gray color will work just fine. Nowadays though, in digital cameras, if you have a white balance ability on your camera, you can just use that with whatever color you choose.

Stick with tried and true...18% grey / gray is as neutral as you can go even when the color temp of your lights is wrong...the 18% will allow you to correct colors as needed

Kodak sells a pocket size 18% card.....

Any color that you want for contrast will also look better if the meter exposes with 18%

( use card at model, set camera to "AE" LOCK....meter off card for exposure 1st touch will lock exp,now remove card, 2nd touch will lock focus and allow shot to be taken. )

This is a " norm " for AE LOCK.....your camera may work slightly different, and you are using a tripod???.......I hope..

Auto Exposure not Aperture Priority!!!! Know the difference and you will see the difference.

Done now...... feel better

Edited June 21, 2011 by MIKE THE MANIAC

[Len Woodruff]

Great information guys!

[MikeMc]

What would be the best neutral background when taking pictures of a purple or dark blue car? I want to take pictures outside away from direct sunlight using my digital camera.

I'm going to make a different point in this post.....The best way too see a color correctly is in "daylight".....real world your not going to get the "perfect light" that you want. I live in the "Sunshine State" ...Its bright..in fact SO bright..I use a flash on my camera most of the time. What you do in a nut shell is shade the camera from the sun, let the sunlight do its thing and you use "Fill Flash" to fill in the shadows...you can always decrease light in a picture / image if wanted...but you cannot increase it....learn to use a 2 Plane flat that can fold and be set up quick ( for 1/24 scale a 24 x 12" folded in 1/2 will work). White artist foamcore board is cheap and easy and you can get it anywhere...

[sjordan2]

The best general answer I know of is this:

Depending on your camera and your camera skills, use a neutral background. In most cases, this means a medium to medium-dark gray. A white background against a darkly painted body may cause exposure problems, just as a black or very dark background against a light-colored car can do the same. You can't go wrong with medium gray.

Edited June 24, 2011 by sjordan2

[charlie8575]

At the risk of sounding a little bit like a wise-guy...

What if your car is gray against the Kodak gray background? Wouldn't you want something with a little contrast, like black or white, or maybe even another color, like maroon or blue?

Or, some cars, like my GTO below, I took pictures of on top of my Caprice, which was silver, and it didn't work too well. The digital camera didn't like it. I didn't try it with my AF 35 mm SLR, and now that I don't have the car anymore, I cant experiment.

I kinda like Harry's idea, of doing something like a mix of black/white/and maybe gray as the backdrops. It solves the problem.

One thing I've always wanted to do for my pictures was to replicate some of the brochure photography of the 1960s (Cadillac espeially comes to mind,) in which large sheets of fabric were draped behind the car, sometimes even the same color, and the lighting was set so that the car would still be set off from the back-drop. The overall effect is really quite elegant.

Charlie Larkin

[jsimmons]

I always prefer Kodak 18% gray! That is a light gray color that Kodak came up with many years ago and is the standard of light reflectance by which light meters are calibrated to. The best thing about this is that the background now does not radically alter the reading your camera's meter reads. In other words, if you use a background that is black, the meter sees very little light and wants to open the exposure. If you use a white background, the camera sees a lot of light and wants to close down the exposure. If you use 18% gray, the meter sees it just right and it's much easier to get the correct exposure. There are different views on this subject...12% vs liminescence vs refletance etc etc. But for the average shots, this 18% gray color will work just fine. Nowadays though, in digital cameras, if you have a white balance ability on your camera, you can just use that with whatever color you choose.

This is the correct answer. You can get sheets of 18% gray paper at photo shops, and you can get something close at you LHS (local hobby store).

I also built my own light box out of that lightweight foam board you can get at your LHS The bottom and back are solid, and the top/sides are mostly cut out to allow me to play with lighting and position. Here are some pics taken in the box (using an 18% gray background with a bed sheet serving as a light diffuser. Note that I also had the camera on a tripod and connected to a laptop that was controlling the camera settings and taking the pictures. There was also a small amount of post-processing done on the photos (I use PaintShop Pro v8). As you can see, the gray background is perfect, regardless of what color the subject is.

1/18 or 1/20 scale diecast

1/43 scale diecast

1/64 scale diecast

[Terry Sumner]

Thanks John...

I do know a little about photography. I owned 2 pro photography studios for years. Shot a lot of commercial work in addition to weddings, portraits, teams, models' portofolios, etc etc. Also took a lot of week long courses under some pretty famous photogs, like Dean Collins. Even had about half of my PPA credits towards the vaunted "Master of Photography" degree. But my caveat is that all my experience is with conventional film cameras so I now have to try to relate that experience to the digital world. Most of the lighting techniques still apply but some stuff is all new...like white balance. Never had to deal with that in the film world. And there are a lot of other nuances too. And since I retired from active commercial photography just prior to the big switchover, I find myself sometimes lacking for the new world. But basic light is still basic light!

[Monte's Motors]

Red has always looked like it glows.

What is the problem?

Thanks

[MikeMc]

Thanks John...

I do know a little about photography. I owned 2 pro photography studios for years. Shot a lot of commercial work in addition to weddings, portraits, teams, models' portofolios, etc etc. Also took a lot of week long courses under some pretty famous photogs, like Dean Collins. Even had about half of my PPA credits towards the vaunted "Master of Photography" degree. But my caveat is that all my experience is with conventional film cameras so I now have to try to relate that experience to the digital world. Most of the lighting techniques still apply but some stuff is all new...like white balance. Never had to deal with that in the film world. And there are a lot of other nuances too. And since I retired from active commercial photography just prior to the big switchover, I find myself sometimes lacking for the new world. But basic light is still basic light!

But no more worries about the wrong bulbs in the lights or changing filters 5200 kelvin........as you said...light is light

Now we have digital backs for large scale...Ansel is still rolling!!

[Foxer]

Thanks John...

But my caveat is that all my experience is with conventional film cameras so I now have to try to relate that experience to the digital world. Most of the lighting techniques still apply but some stuff is all new...like white balance. Never had to deal with that in the film world.

I don't understand why white balance didn't apply in your previous film experience. All the photographers I knew back in film days had their trusty 18% grey cards on hand. Digital white balancing is just so much less hassle. My DSLR's manual even tells how to use a grey card to set white balance ... just like my 1969 circa Minolta.

With the quality of digital images now I would never go back to film!

Edited June 26, 2011 by Foxer

[Terry Sumner]

There just wasn't any such thing as stand alone white balance. Everything was based off the 18% greay card. Another color balancing tool was a Macbeth color checker chart. This was/is a chart with a set of known colors that could be used to check colors in film and video. They may still use it today...I don't know. But you could take a photo of it in your first exposure of a run of film and then use that to set your colors in printing pictures by comparing the chart to a printed image and then adjusting acordingly when printing. I don't suppose it would be of any help in exposing digital images but I can see where it would be of help when printing images on paper.

[Foxer]

There just wasn't any such thing as stand alone white balance. Everything was based off the 18% greay card. Another color balancing tool was a Macbeth color checker chart. This was/is a chart with a set of known colors that could be used to check colors in film and video. They may still use it today...I don't know. But you could take a photo of it in your first exposure of a run of film and then use that to set your colors in printing pictures by comparing the chart to a printed image and then adjusting acordingly when printing. I don't suppose it would be of any help in exposing digital images but I can see where it would be of help when printing images on paper.

Yeah, I guess it wasn't called that exactly. The Macbeth color checker is kind of built in to higher end cameras ... the same effect anyway. I can take a shot of an 18% grey card in the light and the camera will balance later shots to adjust.

[charlie8575]

For a visual of the type of shot I was talking about earlier, here's a couple from the '67 Cadillac brochure.

I would think that would be pretty easy to replicate with a black photo-box and some thin cloth draped around the back and under the model, at least for the black backdrop, and a white one for white or other colors you might like to use.

Charlie Larkin

Edited June 27, 2011 by charlie8575

[Terry Sumner]

Getting the background like that is the easy part. The tougher parts are 2 things...your light source and getting the exposure right. When pro's photograph large objects like that they need to make the source of the light really big in relation to it's distance from the object being photographed to avoid specular highlights as much as possible (explanation of "specular" highlight below). The final entity that the light passes through determines the size of the light source. The initial size of your light source is very small...the flash. And a tiny light source creates a lot of specular highlights. Passing the light through something like a light box effectively increases the size of the light source resulting in big highlights that appear much smoother, or...softer.

Think of it this way...the largest source of light we can possibly have is the sun. But it's so far away from anything on earth it becomes a pinpoint source of light when related to the distance from the object to be shot. If however, you add a large diffuser like a big piece of white parachute fabric, in between the sun and say..a 1:1 car being shot outside...well now the fabric is the source of light, not the sun. This results in the specular highlights transforming into a huge block of "soft" light.

Same goes for shooting models. The flash is pinpoint but add a diffuser in between the flash and the model and now you have a much softer light!

All I've said so far is just to try to show that a light box or an umbrella of a simple piece of translucent white cloth should be used to enlarge the source of light to soften the light.

Then there is the problem of exposure. Having a big dark area like that all around your model is going to cause the camera to want to open up the exposure. If you can set your exposure via a gray card or a white balance you can get a good exposure.

I have no white balance capability with my cheapo digital camera so sometimes I do this.... I put my gray card right in front of my model, depress the shutter button slightly so that it registers the exposure and focus initially...then pull the card out of the way and depress the shutter button all the way and snap the picture. Most cheap digital cameras can do this. That's how I took the photo in my avatar.

And just to explain what specular hights are: they are pinpoint reflections of the light source. They are a mirror image of the light source. In other words...when you see a photo of a car at a show and you see all those tiny little relections all over the car of the ceiling lights...those are specular highlights. When you see a modern photo of a car in something like the Rodder's Journal and you see these large sweeping blocks of shiny relections...those are also specular highlights. But they look so smooth because the reflection is that of a super large diffuser, not just the flash unit.

I hope this helps as I'm not entirely sure I explained it any clearer than mud!

Edited June 27, 2011 by Terry Sumner

[MikeMc]

For a visual of the type of shot I was talking about earlier, here's a couple from the '67 Cadillac brochure.

I would think that would be pretty easy to replicate with a black photo-box and some thin cloth draped around the back and under the model, at least for the black backdrop, and a white one for white or other colors you might like to use.

Charlie Larkin

The trouble you will have with a cloth background and models is due to the lack of depth of focus / vs depth of field .In trying to get the focus correct on the small subject the texture of the back round will jump out at you. Because the separation between the model and background is so tight you cannot throw your background out of focus easily...Even some of the "finer" weaves show up. I learned this doing Crystal shots when I was just starting.With the magnification we need that cloth will usually show up....Yes you can use it to your advantage, or photoshop it away....I used to spend less darkroom time burning and dodging than I do in PS today.

With the availibility of seamless paper and PVC pipe..backdrops should be simple.

Shooting 1:1 cars is a lot different than models....no Need for a "blimp" for mainlighting

[Terry Sumner]

Wow Mike...if that isn't the perfect example of what I was trying not so eloquently to say!!! Thanks!

[MikeMc]

I helped a guy with one of those..I think we had 4 big norman heads in it It did light things up

[sjordan2]

Here's a guy who really knows how to light cars, and studio set-ups like these take forever to do. Lord knows how much Photoshop is involved. In the past, when I've supervised photo shoots of subjects with highly reflective surfaces, I noticed one trick that the best photographers used was to hide themselves behind a white paper curtain with a hole cut out for the lens, so their reflection couldn't be seen and the curtain would bounce soft light onto the subject. If there wasn't enough contrasting light modeling on the subject's glossy surface, they would play around with putting strips of wide black tape on the paper shroud that would create interesting reflections that brought out the contours.

http://www.photodesignstudios.com/portfolio.html

You'll notice that this shot relies entirely on a complicated lighting set-up to separate a black subject from a black background, with strategically placed overhead lighting, rim lighting from behind and a bit of foreground fill. To me, the main degree of difficulty is that these kinds of shots typically entirely involve multiple synchronized strobe flashes, where you can't see what you've got until you study your picture after the flashes went off. Not something for beginners who want to get the shot quickly. Fortunately, today's digital cameras make it easier for the amateur to get good shots without using flash.

TIP: Pro photographers and cinematographers often use a background material called duvetyne for still-life work, which is very much like velvet and absorbs light evenly. Pick your favorite background colors and get velvet material from a fabric store. It takes more material than you think, because you need a pretty good distance between the subject and the backdrop.

Edited June 28, 2011 by sjordan2

[Terry Sumner]

I used a Mamiya RB67 Pro-S for all my work. (as opposed to the ubiquitos Hasselblad) I preferred the 2 1/4 X 2 3/4 format vs the square 2 1/4 because I could crop right in the camera. The rotating back made things a lot easier too.

But what I wanted to say was that I had a Polaroid back for the Mamiya so I could see how my lighting was working out imediately. That's how we had to do it in the "olden days".... LOL

Also...using the black paper was a technique known as "subtractive lighting." This was invented by a portrait photographer by the name of Leon Kennamer. He discovered the technique quite by accident and then he practised with it till he understood it and made it a standard lighting technique used mostly for portraits. It also works on inanimate objects too especially in a studio situation where it can be controlled easeir than outside. I took a seminar with Kennamer on that technique.

[MikeMc]

I used a Mamiya RB67 Pro-S for all my work. (as opposed to the ubiquitos Hasselblad) I preferred the 2 1/4 X 2 3/4 format vs the square 2 1/4 because I could crop right in the camera. The rotating back made things a lot easier too.

But what I wanted to say was that I had a Polaroid back for the Mamiya so I could see how my lighting was working out imediately. That's how we had to do it in the "olden days".... LOL

Made a living off the 645s ,RBs and RZs....plus all the backs and lenses.

This picture will bring back a memory....The camera in the upper left is a 645 I'm working on a RB67 body....

[Terry Sumner]

Still have any of that gear? I still have my 2 RB's, 90mm, 150 soft focus and a 250mm. A bunch of backs, Polaroid back, prism finder, light meters, flash units, etc etc. Even still have some Norman studio flash gear, umbrellas, etc. Finally sold off all my darkroom stuff a few years ago. That was well equipped too! Color enlarger, processors, Stainless sink, etc etc. All gone now.