In this video I'll show you how you can
use bed sheets as backgrounds in your
small home studio.
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey
and you're watching AdoramatTV brought to
you by Adorama. The camera store that's
got everything for us photographers.
And in this video I'm going back to my roots.
So I test out my very first type of
background. Bed sheets... as backgrounds!
Well technically they're duvet covers,
which is great because it means I can
slide in a two by one piece of timber,
put some weight at the bottom, and get
them to hang a little bit better. Now
I've got three brand-new bed sheets to
play with. The first one is just this
basic black bed sheet here, then I've got
a stripey lightweight slightly shiny bed
sheet, and finally a much heavier
patterned black bed sheet. Yes I like
black backgrounds, but the question is...
Can bed sheets make good backgrounds?
Well the only way to find that out is to
get a light set. Get a model in, and let's
get shooting. So I've been joined in the
studio today by the amazing Meg Biffin.
She is going to be the model for this
shoot, and we're going to start with the
most basic of backgrounds. It's the black
bed sheet. Now black is a great color to
begin with if you're new to studio work,
because well not least, shadows, dark
shadows on a dark background. I mean
that's something you don't have to worry about.
However I'm also using a softbox, so my
shadows shouldn't be a problem. So let's
just see what we get, here we go. So that
works very nicely it's a simple lighting
setup, with a simple background. But the
thing about black backgrounds well
they're not actually black. What they are
is a really, really dark, shade of grey,
and we can lighten the gray by well, just
taking one of these lights. Popping it in
behind Meg and pointing it straight at
the background. Now when I do that, that's
going to make this black go a little
bit brighter. Let's just see how that
changes the shot.
The black is great because when it was
black and really dark, we didn't need to
worry about any creases. Ironing wasn't
really an issue, but the minute we put
light on it. We can see all of the
creases. Now I don't mind those, but
they're too much in focus at f/8. So i'm
going to use an olympus 45mm f/1.2 lens,
wide open at 1.2. Now in
order to make this work, I need to use
something called high-speed sync flash.
Now you can find out a lot more about
that on some of my previous videos here
on AdoramaTV, or check out the Adorama
Learning Center. Let's take some pictures.
So that worked really well. We got a much
shallower depth of field this time. The
background... although it is a bit creased
and wrinkled, it doesn't really matter. In
fact I think it actually adds to the
pictures. Our second background is
similar to the first one, in as much as
it's dark, but this time you'll notice a
subtle difference. There is a line of
stripes that are slightly more shiny
than the rest of the black background.
Now having put this up we've discovered
a few things about stripy backgrounds.
First one is if the stripes aren't
totally vertical, you'll notice that in
the picture, and as it is a bedsheet and
not a proper background, getting it
totally smooth has proved to be
something of a challenge, but this is the
best we can do. It looks pretty good. It's
not too bad. Let's see what it looks like
when we take a shot like this.
This time I've gone for a different
lighting position, just to mix it up. It's
going to light Meg, and it's going to
light the background.
But if I want to see those lines a
little bit brighter, I need to go get
that second light that we had before, and
pop it as before right in behind Meg,
pointing straight at the background, and
we'll take a shot like this.
The amount of light that I put on the
background will have an impact on how
bright it appears to be. So we can put
lots of light on, or we can have just a
little bit of light. So those work really
well. But once again I can see the
background is quite crisp and sharp at
f/8. So let's switch over to that 1.2
lens, and try with a much wider aperture,
shallower depth of field, and see whether
the creases and the stripey background
work with a shallower depth of field.
So with the shallower depth of field. The
stripes are still there. The creases are
less obvious. However it is a much harder
background to work with. So let's try our
third and final background. So the last
background is the one I thought was
going to be the most challenging. Which
is this sort of patterned background,
again it's a dark background, where there's a
sort of shiny surface, and that should
work quite nicely with the lighting
setup we've got here. Same lighting as
before let's try this background. So
that's really interesting, although the
light is in the same position as the
stripy background. The background is
almost completely black, like the first
one. It's amazing just how changing the
fabric and the pattern makes all the
difference to the shots. So if I want to
see the pattern in this shot. I am
definitely going to put some light on it.
Let's try that,
so this is working quite nicely, but
there's always things you can do to
change the lighting, and one of the
easiest ways is adding a gel to the
background light. So I've got a couple of
different gels. Let's add these in, see
how they look. Fantastic range of photos
whichever bedsheet background you use!
Be prepared to spend some time steaming out
those creases, because it might be time
worth spent, especially on a background
like this, where it looked much better in focus,
compared to when it was out of focus.
Now if you've enjoyed this video, don't
forget to leave me a comment below, and
if you want to see more videos for myself
and the other amazing presenters right
here on AdoramaTV, you know what you got
to do. You're going to click on the
subscribe button.
I'm Gavin Hoey,
thanks for watching.