Need macro photography advice (how to get a white background?)

[phnoob]

Thanks, Buckster. I will give all of that a try. I guess I need to go and buy a piece of glass

Re-reading Charlie's posts, I definitely think he was saying to put the flash underneath the light tent. This is what he said:

you could probably get by with one flash each on the sides (say 3/4 of the way up).. and one underneath / behind the components. You would have to play with power levels...

The ones on the side should be fine for lighting the small items you are shooting, especially if you get them up toward the top of the sides.... lots of soft diffused light. The one underneath will light the base of the lightbox... turning it TOTALLY white. You will have to play with the power... you want enough to make the base cloth slightly overexposed... but you dont want so much that you get major splash on the items. Make sense?

 

[Buckster]

Thanks, Buckster. I will give all of that a try. I guess I need to go and buy a piece of glass

Re-reading Charlie's posts, I definitely think he was saying to put the flash underneath the light tent. This is what he said:

you could probably get by with one flash each on the sides (say 3/4 of the way up).. and one underneath / behind the components. You would have to play with power levels...

The ones on the side should be fine for lighting the small items you are shooting, especially if you get them up toward the top of the sides.... lots of soft diffused light. The one underneath will light the base of the lightbox... turning it TOTALLY white. You will have to play with the power... you want enough to make the base cloth slightly overexposed... but you dont want so much that you get major splash on the items. Make sense?

I see what you mean. With a piece of glass inside the tent, you won't need it elevated, though you could shoot a third light under the glass onto the fabric under it from the front, or still elevate it and shoot it from underneath. Either method will light up that bottom just fine.

 

[cgipson1]

You definitely got a WHITE background for the components... with shooting the bottom! The trouble is that there was too much! Need to cut back on the flash power significantly.. try to balance it, so you get white, but not so much it kills the subjects. That is why I said "You would have to play with power levels..."!

Buckster's idea is good also... normally if you are trying to blow out a background, you dont want the subjects too close to the background, as there can be light splash.

 

[phnoob]

You definitely got a WHITE background for the components... with shooting the bottom! The trouble is that there was too much! Need to cut back on the flash power significantly.. try to balance it, so you get white, but not so much it kills the subjects. That is why I said "You would have to play with power levels..."!

Buckster's idea is good also... normally if you are trying to blow out a background, you dont want the subjects too close to the background, as there can be light splash.

The flash underneath was at its lowest power level, 1/128, but I tried moving the light tent further away from it and that reduced the brightness. I tried both that and also setting the LEDs on a plate of glass I just grabbed out of a picture frame, but the results were not much better than before. I'll try again tomorrow, I guess..

 

[Sw1tchFX]

power isn't the problem, it's that you're working too close to your subjects. Think bigger.

get a sheet of plexi. Not some 8x10 sheet, more like 4x4 feet.

get some 4 1/2 foot white seamless.

compose the picture

drop seamless in the background..some feet behind the subjects.

nuke the seamless with a flash

by now, you should have a pure white background and a silhouette of the pins.

pump a flash through some sort of diffusion material (such as a reflector panel or softbox)

now your background and subject are lit independently.




That's how you do it:

 

[amirchen]

try using a white plexiglass as the bottom of the set.

 

[Buckster]

You definitely got a WHITE background for the components... with shooting the bottom! The trouble is that there was too much! Need to cut back on the flash power significantly.. try to balance it, so you get white, but not so much it kills the subjects. That is why I said "You would have to play with power levels..."!

Buckster's idea is good also... normally if you are trying to blow out a background, you dont want the subjects too close to the background, as there can be light splash.

The flash underneath was at its lowest power level, 1/128, but I tried moving the light tent further away from it and that reduced the brightness. I tried both that and also setting the LEDs on a plate of glass I just grabbed out of a picture frame, but the results were not much better than before. I'll try again tomorrow, I guess..

How high up in the tent was the glass? It wasn't just sitting on the floor of the tent was it?

 

[phnoob]

You definitely got a WHITE background for the components... with shooting the bottom! The trouble is that there was too much! Need to cut back on the flash power significantly.. try to balance it, so you get white, but not so much it kills the subjects. That is why I said "You would have to play with power levels..."!

Buckster's idea is good also... normally if you are trying to blow out a background, you dont want the subjects too close to the background, as there can be light splash.

The flash underneath was at its lowest power level, 1/128, but I tried moving the light tent further away from it and that reduced the brightness. I tried both that and also setting the LEDs on a plate of glass I just grabbed out of a picture frame, but the results were not much better than before. I'll try again tomorrow, I guess..

How high up in the tent was the glass? It wasn't just sitting on the floor of the tent was it?

I held the glass probably 10" from the bottom. The flash was still underneath the light tent.

power isn't the problem, it's that you're working too close to your subjects. Think bigger.

get a sheet of plexi. Not some 8x10 sheet, more like 4x4 feet.

get some 4 1/2 foot white seamless.

compose the picture

drop seamless in the background..some feet behind the subjects.

nuke the seamless with a flash

by now, you should have a pure white background and a silhouette of the pins.

pump a flash through some sort of diffusion material (such as a reflector panel or softbox)

now your background and subject are lit independently.

A 4x4' piece of plexiglass?

Could you explain what you mean by "white seamless"?

How would you place the flashes with your setup?

That picture looks great, by the way!

 

[Sw1tchFX]

You don't have to use plexi..any glass without color would work, it just needs to be durable and completely transparent. And yes, 4 by 4 feet, the bigger, the better, it allows for more than one angle.

Seamless is giant rolls of paper.

if you've got the glass on sawhorses, just put a head or two underneath the glass pointing at the seamless, and another head on the subject. light them independent.