So quite a while back now I
shared a technique that I call the Invisible Black Background.
It's such a great technique that means you can easily
make it look as though you're in a studio
with a black background when you're not, by
under exposing the natural light and using a flash.
Now, technology has advanced since I did that video,
and there's one question
that came up again and again and again.
So it's about time for an update.
Okay so let's kick off with the kit that you need.
Obviously, there's your camera, a flash
and a means to trigger the flash.
I'm using a wireless trigger, but you could use a cable.
If you really wanted to you could use your flash on camera,
but you wouldn't do that, would you?
Now, I'm
going to keep things really simple,
so rather than talking about
first curtain and second curtain,
I'm just going to say Shutter Opens, Shutter Closes.
Also in the first video, I talked about native
sync speed.
This varies from camera to camera,
but it's the maximum speed you can use
so that when the shutter opens, the flash goes off,
light hits the sensor and the shutter closes.
If your shutter speed went too high,
you ended up with a black band
on your image where the light from the flash
didn't hit that part of the sensor.
Since then, though, things have changed
and we now have high speed sync, and this is how it works.
You press the shutter.
The shutter opens to reveal the sensor.
The flash, now that it's in high speed
sync, doesn't just go off once, though ...
it continues to go off again and again really quickly,
putting bursts of light onto the sensor,
covering all of it until the shutter closes.
Okay so how can we now use this to create the invisible
black background?
So here I am, out on the beach
on a very bright day with no clouds in the sky.
If you can do this technique
in these conditions, you can do it anywhere.
First of all,
we need to put our cameras into manual mode
so that we can control
each of the ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed.
So ISO just like in the first video,
set this as low as it can go so that the sensor isn't
so sensitive to light.
I set my camera's ISO to 50.
Next we have aperture.
Now, unlike in the first video, we're going to be using
high speed sync this time,
which means potentially we could use a wider aperture.
Now, I was out on a very bright day, so F11 is what I went for.
Being able to use
a wider aperture means your flash is going to love you
because Aperture is generally what controls flash power,
and shutter speed is what controls the ambient light.
The wider the aperture is, the more light from the flash
can get in.
Think of it being like the eye of the camera.
If you had your eyes closed down and squinting,
and I triggered
a flash in your face, it wouldn't really bother you.
But if you had your eyes
wide open, and then I fired a flash in your face.
Do you get my point?
Finally, we have shutter speed.
Once I've set the ISO and chosen an aperture,
all I need to do here is increase
the shutter speed until I don't see anything on the screen
or through the eyepiece.
Now, at the moment, my flash and trigger are off,
so I'll increase the shutter speed
until we completely underexpose the scene
by killing all of the ambient light and the scene goes black.
Now look though.
When I turn the trigger on, the shutter speed has reverted
back to the old ways; the native sync speed
of 1/250th of a second, and I cannot make it go any quicker.
And this is just because I now need to turn on high speed sync.
With my trigger all I do is press sync and you can see
now that I am actually in high speed sync mode.
Now that I've turned on high speed sync,
you can see that the shutter speed
has reverted back to 1/5000th of a second.
So we're all set.
Camera settings are done,
the trigger is on and set into high speed sync.
All I need to do now
is turn on the flash and I'm using this in manual.
So when I now take a photograph, the camera captures
the natural light, which is totally underexposed
and will be black, and at the same time it captures
the light from the flash, which is lighting our subject.
If I need more power,
then I'll just manually dial in some more.
Now here I'm using an FJ 200 from Westcott,
which is a 200 watt second flash,
and on a very bright, cloudless day this worked a treat.
Now, just a few things to mention.
If you set your camera to the lowest ISO it can go
and then maybe choose an aperture of F8 or F11
and then increase the shutter speed
as far as it will go, and the scene
still isn't completely black and underexposed,
then you have a few options.
You could close down the aperture a bit more,
maybe get into an area where there's a bit of shade
or even wait until later in the day.
But if you are able to completely
underexpose the scene,
but then the flash you're using
isn't lighting the subject enough even on full power, the
that is when you would need to use a more powerful flash.
So to recap.
First of all, turn off the flash and the trigger,
use the camera settings to completely underexpose
the scene, so we set the ISO as low as it can go.
Choose an aperture and increase the shutter speed
until the scene goes completely black.
If it doesn't, then just close down the aperture
a little bit more.
Turn on the flash and the trigger, turn
on high speed sync and away you go.
Oh, and practice plenty of practice.
Right, let me just mention
one more
thing about high speed sync, and then I want to cover
the question or the comment that came up so many times before.
Now, because in high speed sync,
the Flash is doing
multiple flashes, that means it has to recycle very quickly,
and because of this,
it can't go back to full power each and every time.
So this means the flash power is reduced.
Because the flash power is reduced,
this means the flash will need to be in closer to the subject.
So high speed sync is more suited
for closer shots rather than full length.
Now, one of the comments that came up more than ever
in the very first video
was about using neutral density filters.
Why not just put one of those
over the front of the lens to darken the scene down?
Well, there's a few reasons.
First of all, the technology
already exists in pretty much every single camera system,
meaning that we don't need to use neutral density filters.
We have high speed sync.
If you're going to put a neutral
density filter over your expensive lens,
then you need to make sure you get one
that is really good quality and they won't be cheap.
Also, what if your 10 stop isn't enough?
Are you going to buy another one to add to it?
Then there’s focusing.
With high speed sync when you turn on the trigger,
certainly in mirrorless cameras, you can see the subject
so your camera can focus.
With neutral density filters, you don't,
so you'd need to take it off the camera,
focus on the subject, lock the focus,
put the neutral density filter back on,
and then take the shot, and that is a faff.
But what if the subject moves slightly?
You're going to have to keep doing that each and every time.
So there you go, the invisible black background version 2.0.
A great technique for making anywhere, indoors
or outdoors
look like you're in a studio with a black background.
Actually, one last thing.
The rules of physics still apply.
If you allow light to hit a surface nearby,
then it will light up and it will appear in the picture.
So if there is the danger of light
hitting a wall or some other surface,
then restrict the path of the light using a grid or a snoot,
something just to stop it spilling out all over
and hitting surfaces that you don't want it to.
Right, that's all for this video,
so I really hope that's been useful.
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But for now, that's me. I'm done.
I'll catch you in the next video.