High contrast Product photography.....Tips?

[flameshots]

I have been contracted to shoot some products. The customer wants them on as pure a white background as possible. The biggest problem I'm seeing is that his product (black leather belts) are going to give me fits trying to expose correctly. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions for properly exposing for both the white background and the black belts? I'm even thinking HDR just to ensure that both are rendered correctly. Any help would be great. Thanks in advance.

Marc.

 

[OrionsByte]

Expose for the belt, and let the background overexpose. You can't get any whiter than white, right?

With black leather, you're also going to want to make sure that whatever lighting you use doesn't cause a direct reflection in the belt. Assuming the coiled up so that they are basically perpendicular to the surface they're on, you could probably blast the ceiling with a bounce flash and get enough light to really show the texture of the belt without getting too much glare.

 

[Big Mike]

You don't really do it with exposure, you do it with lighting.

Get the belt away from the background, then add light(s) that will only illuminate the background. That way, you can expose for the belt and have the white background lit to show up as white at that same exposure.

Or, if the outline of the subject (and maybe it's shadow) is simple, making the background white (if it's not quite white) is only a few simple clicks with Photohop.

 

[flameshots]

You don't really do it with exposure, you do it with lighting.

Get the belt away from the background, then add light(s) that will only illuminate the background. That way, you can expose for the belt and have the white background lit to show up as white at that same exposure.

Or, if the outline of the subject (and maybe it's shadow) is simple, making the background white (if it's not quite white) is only a few simple clicks with Photohop.

I'm gonna try this! The one thing I failed to mention is that the belts are actually large weight belts. Now to figure out how to elevate the belts. I am also going to wrap the belts and buckle them so I can stand them up. Thanks for the input guys.

Marc