How to achieve this effect: subject blending into blackness

bhuether · Mar 14, 2015

Hi, I am trying to achieve a shot as follows: You can imagine a person standing in the middle of a room. I want to achieve an effect, such that the subject is exposed, at least majority of the subject anyway, and then he immediately fades to darkness. I don't want to achieve this in photoshop, I would like to achieve it photographically if possible. Thanks! My camera is a Nikon D90, no external flash.

Mattis · Mar 14, 2015

So you want a black background without your subject actually standing in front of a black background?
The trick here is to expose only your subject and to have your background underexposed so much that it is just black.
You can do this with a flash (off-camera makes it way easier) and you set your camera to a relatively small aperture, like f/8 or so, and a fast shutter speed (or at least as fast as the sync speed of your camera allows, that's usually between 1/200s and 1/250s). Then you just need to adjust the flash's power so your subject is properly exposed.

weepete · Mar 14, 2015

Sounds to me like the op is talking about light fall off. If I remember correctly what you will need to do is use a big light source and get it as close to your subject as possible to get the maximum light fall off.

Designer · Mar 14, 2015

With no external flash, it won't be easy to get a good exposure. Whatever light you use will have to be shaded so no light goes toward the background.

Braineack · Mar 14, 2015

like this?

One Light Photography Forum

tirediron · Mar 14, 2015

This is a single-light image. The gentleman was sitting in an arm-chair in his living room. The walls (3-4' behind him) were light-coloured and there was average daytime ambient light in the room. To get this lighting, I first metered the ambient lighting and used a combination of low ISO and small aperture to achieve an almost black scene. I don't recall the numbers off-hand, but let's say for example that was: ISO 100 and f8 (shutter speed is irrelevant as long as it's below sync speed since I'm using flash).

I used a large (22") gridded beauty dish immediately camera left and close enough to the subject so that the rim was visible in the original frame. The speedlight was set to give me f8 on his face and the gridded dish aimed so that there was no spill on the background. There would have been a bright patch lower down on the wall/floor camera right, however I didn't care about that as I knew I could crop it out.

With the light that close, the fall-off was great enough that his medals were actually about one stop below his face, however I adjusted that in post.

dennybeall · Mar 14, 2015

Have some fun with it. Sit your subject in a dark room - open the lens - lock the shutter open on the camera and "paint" the subject with a small light. Then close the shutter.

bhuether · Mar 14, 2015

Braineack said:
like this?

One Light Photography Forum

Yes, like that!

bhuether · Mar 14, 2015

Thanks for the tip! I am quite limited in supplies, and also I am going to be the subject of the shot and am trying to do it with my camera on self timer.

tirediron said:
This is a single-light image. The gentleman was sitting in an arm-chair in his living room. The walls (3-4' behind him) were light-coloured and there was average daytime ambient light in the room. To get this lighting, I first metered the ambient lighting and used a combination of low ISO and small aperture to achieve an almost black scene. I don't recall the numbers off-hand, but let's say for example that was: ISO 100 and f8 (shutter speed is irrelevant as long as it's below sync speed since I'm using flash).

I used a large (22") gridded beauty dish immediately camera left and close enough to the subject so that the rim was visible in the original frame. The speedlight was set to give me f8 on his face and the gridded dish aimed so that there was no spill on the background. There would have been a bright patch lower down on the wall/floor camera right, however I didn't care about that as I knew I could crop it out.

With the light that close, the fall-off was great enough that his medals were actually about one stop below his face, however I adjusted that in post.

tirediron · Mar 15, 2015

The only supplies you NEED are those that will allow you to use the flash off-camera as it is virtually impossible to do this with on-camera flash unless you can get a LOT of subject/background separation. As long as you can get the flash off of the camera, then you do it. If you don't mind putting in a little sweat equity, then things such as beauty dishes and grids can be made form readily available dollar-store supplies, and the dish, grid and sundries could be put together for <$10. Search "DIY photography equipment", "DIY beauty dish" and similar terms.

Derrel · Mar 15, 2015

Shoot in a very dark room. Stand relatively close to the camera, like say 8 feet away, or less. Make sure the background is at least 10 feet or more behind you. The on-camera flash will light the close stuff--meaning you--and the farther away stuff will drop off in brightness very rapidly.