In this video
I'll show you how to create
three different background effects
to turn your plane backgrounds
into something a bit more exciting.
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey
and you're watching AdoramaTV
brought to you by Adorama
and in this video,
I'll show you how to turn
your plane background
in your small home studio
into something a bit more exciting
by adding a second light
with either a reflector,
a strip box
or a snoot attached.
Once I've gone through the setups
we'll do an entire shoot using all three looks
but for now let's get some lights set,
let's get a model in,
let's get shooting.
So to help me out
today I've got the amazing Sophie!
Sophie is going to be the model today
and she's being lit by an Xplor 400
with a fairly small 70cm softbox
but the key here is the grid.
Now the grid is there
to direct the light towards Sophie
and away from the background
because what I need
is this gray background
to appear as dark as possible.
The darker it looks in the photos
then the more effect
I can add in with a second light.
Now I've already metered this out for f/2.8
Let's take a picture,
see how it looks.
Here we go...
And as you can see,
that background is well not completely black
but very nearly black
and that's exactly what I want
at the beginning of this shoot.
So the first effect I'm going to do
is the classic spot of light
behind Sophie,
so right in the center
and then vignetting out to darker edges.
Now to achieve it I'm going to use a second light
which is the eVOLV 200
and to make sure that I get that circular spot of light,
I'm going to use the bare bulb
with a circular reflector.
It stands to reason,
if I was to use the speed light attachment
I would get a rectangular shape
to the light which isn't what I'm after here,
so this light is on its lowest possible power
and it's going to go right in behind Sophie
pretty much almost touching her on the back
pointing directly onto the background.
Let's take a shot
and see how this looks.
So this works really well.
It gives a nice bright spot in the middle
and it vignettes at the edges
but it is quite a wide spread of light.
Now there's a couple of ways
I could control the spread of light.
I could add a grid onto
this reflector, but there is a chance
that that grid pattern can be projected
onto the background, so instead what I'm
actually going to do is.. move the lights
closer to the background.
now the closer I get it to the background
the less spread I'm going to have, and the
tighter the beam of light will become,
but the more control I need to have over
its position.
So I may need to just to raise
it up a little bit, so it actually
appears behind Sophie's head, and make
sure it's pointing straight at the
background, and it might just take one or
two shots to get this in exactly the
right position.
So let's take a shot see
how it looks.
There we go, so that's just
a little bit off, to the side just a
little tiny movement can make massive
difference, and if you want a really
dramatic effect, take that light and put
it really close to the background.
Now the spread is going to be incredibly small.
I'm going to have mostly a dark background
with just a a small spot of light and
because it's so close, it's also going to
bring up some of the texture from this
paper as well, but the second look,
I want to do something different.
I'm going to create a linear gradient,
that means I want to create a look where
it's brighter on the background at the bottom,
and then becoming darker towards the top.
Now to achieve it, I'm going to use this,
this is a strip box which is a 12 x 56
inch strip box.
It's almost the same width as my
background paper, and that's
really what I want, because it's going to
come right in behind Sophie back here.
So let's get that in without actually
hitting it, because it's kind of big.
Now the actual position of this is more
important than you might imagine and a
small studio, does make this the most
challenging of the three looks.
Now if I get it so it's pointing straight ahead
parallel with the floor, I'm going to get a
slightly different effect than if I
angle it up.
Let's have a look at this, so
it's in the middle of its power range,
and it gives me that graduated look,
but there's quite a bit of texture
coming off of the paper, even though this
is a smooth paper.
if you light it from a
tight angle, you will see some texture to
reduce the textured effect.
I'm actually going to tilt the softbox
slightly back.
Now that's going to mean that the light is
more even as it goes across the
background.
So my graduated effect might
be slightly reduced, but I'll get rid of
some of the textures.
So that's a balance,
you have to decide.
Let's have a look..
here we go now, these are actually
exactly the same power as the first shot,
and you can see how much brighter the
background has become, but I'm only at
1/8 power.
So I've still got plenty of control, and I can
take the brightness of
that background light down, and have a
much darker background effect,
so for the final look,
I'm going to create something
much more dramatic.
I want to create a thin strip of light,
across the background, and to do it I've
switched out my soft boxes to a snoot.
Now this should give me the look
I'm going for.
I need to get it up nice and high
or at least as high as I can,
in my small home studio,
and that should project light across the
background.
Now it's worth remembering
snoots project a circle of light, but if
you rake it across at a tight angle, that
circle will become stretched out across
the background, and should form a bit
more of a a beam of light.
Getting it in the right position,
is a bit of a challenge,
a little bit of luck,
a little bit of practice
and patience!
So let's see how this looks.
So in this case the
beam doesn't quite work.
It's only slightly adrift,
but all I need to do is
to turn the snoot just slightly more
towards the background,
and try again and this look really brings
up the texture on the the paper,
looks very very dramatic.
A snoot takes much more light
out than you realize, so you may find
yourself using a much higher power than
you first think.
So that's my three different background looks.
What we're going to do now is,
to give Sophie a little
bit of a change.
So we give a leather jacket...
there we go, and we'll get her off the
stoll, and we'll do it a little bit of a
shoot using all of these three different
lighting setups.
Okay so, let's get rid of that,
off we go.
So the first look I'm going to do is
with the strio box, giving that graduated
effect.
So now I'm going to use the
reflector, and I'll move it closer, and
further from the background
to create the different looks.
And finally, let's go for the dramatic
background effect with the snoot..
Now you might notice the colors on these
are a little bit different to the color
on my test pictures, so here's some quick
thoughts on how I edit my pictures to
get a consistent color, even when I'm
changing light.
Now the first thing I'm going to do is
decide on the basic look for
a picture.
So I think with these a little
bit cooler color temperature will
work well with Sophie's look,
that looks a little bit been
majenta, so I'll add a bit of green in
there just to counteract that.
That looks better, and maybe just bring the
vibrance down just to have a slightly more
washed out feel.
I think with these shot as well
I could probably lift the exposure a
little bit as well like that.
Pull the clarity down, and just some general
housekeeping things, like a little bit of
noise reduction...
there you go now.
Once I'm happy with that picture, I can either
click done... open the picture, save it, or
whatever I'm going to do.
But then I'm going to go back to my
pictures and find
the next picture I want to edit, in the
same way for example.
Let's choose this one, I'll open that into
Camera Raw, and here in Camera Raw to
reapply exactly the same settings,
I need to come up to
this small set of lines.
Click on that, and choose 'previous conversion'.
Now that will apply all the same sliders in
exactly the same place, even the noise
reduction, but anything that's local for
example, the adjustment brush.
I want to say lighten that area there, that will
be done one picture at a time, and there
you go, that's how I kept the consistent
color across my edited pictures.
The key to success with this technique is to
keep that background as dark as possible,
until you add in your second light, and
then well the possibilities are pretty
much endless!
Now if you've enjoyed this video..
don't forget to leave me a comment
below, and of course click on that
subscribe button...
and to get regular
notifications of our brand new videos
right here on AdoramaTV
click on the bell icon.
I'm Gavin Hoey,
thanks for watching.