When looking at some photos of fish or other subjects that appear very bright in the photo yet the background would be completely black, I often wonder - do people set their camera M/S/A settings to achieve this result, take photos at night or tweak the levels in Photoshop?
Darken the background of your photo
- Thread starter redtail
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f3nikon
Guest
Camera settings, high shutter speed or small apertures or a combination of both. If the picture is of a fish swimming normally, most likely it was shot during the day, because most fish are asleep at night.
This started in the Nikonos days, when depth of field (areas in focus) was needed to help make up for the lack of focusing of that rangefinder camera. So the photographer had to stop down (smaller aperture) in order to help save an out of focused picture. The smaller aperture under exposed the background (blacken), so the only light hitting the film was the light from the strobe.
Fast forward 2005, we now have some great PS digitals with some of the best autofocusing and exposure features and some are still stuck in this mode.
For myself, I look for a more balanced lighting, a more natural look. Where the background and foreground is very close in exposure. Like what you would see in an actual dive (Plus the added colors) !
My opinion is that the strobe manufacturers are pushing expensive single strobes that are much too powerful at such a close distance. Lower power settings and diffusers will help, but an even bigger help would be to design a strobe with 3 or 4 flash heads, controlled power settings. To "wrap" light around the subject and the soften the harsh shadows. The lower strobe power will also enable you to open up the aperture to get the background "out of the black", without over exposing the foreground.
Dive Safe
This started in the Nikonos days, when depth of field (areas in focus) was needed to help make up for the lack of focusing of that rangefinder camera. So the photographer had to stop down (smaller aperture) in order to help save an out of focused picture. The smaller aperture under exposed the background (blacken), so the only light hitting the film was the light from the strobe.
Fast forward 2005, we now have some great PS digitals with some of the best autofocusing and exposure features and some are still stuck in this mode.
For myself, I look for a more balanced lighting, a more natural look. Where the background and foreground is very close in exposure. Like what you would see in an actual dive (Plus the added colors) !
My opinion is that the strobe manufacturers are pushing expensive single strobes that are much too powerful at such a close distance. Lower power settings and diffusers will help, but an even bigger help would be to design a strobe with 3 or 4 flash heads, controlled power settings. To "wrap" light around the subject and the soften the harsh shadows. The lower strobe power will also enable you to open up the aperture to get the background "out of the black", without over exposing the foreground.
Dive Safe
You can achieve black background during the day without tempering in photoshop but it is a bit more difficult with PnS camera than film or dSLR camera.
Basically you will need to shoot in manual mode and try to get clear water in the background so nothing will reflect back to the camera. Use fast shutterspeed in compbination with small aparture and low power setting on the strobe so that the strobe is just enough to light up the subject and foreground but does not reflect the background back to the camera. PnS camera is a little trickier only because most PnS aparture only get to around F8-F11 which is still relatively wide unlike SLR where you can get to F30's-F50's depending on the lens.
On Oly C5050, I would be on F8 and shutterspeed of around 1/500-1/1000s and the lowest or second lowest power setting on my Ikelite strobe.
If the background such as rock or coral is near the foreground subject then it is very difficult.
I do like black background in macro shot as it does highlight out the subject but it certainly does not look natural as you would see during the dive.
Basically you will need to shoot in manual mode and try to get clear water in the background so nothing will reflect back to the camera. Use fast shutterspeed in compbination with small aparture and low power setting on the strobe so that the strobe is just enough to light up the subject and foreground but does not reflect the background back to the camera. PnS camera is a little trickier only because most PnS aparture only get to around F8-F11 which is still relatively wide unlike SLR where you can get to F30's-F50's depending on the lens.
On Oly C5050, I would be on F8 and shutterspeed of around 1/500-1/1000s and the lowest or second lowest power setting on my Ikelite strobe.
If the background such as rock or coral is near the foreground subject then it is very difficult.
I do like black background in macro shot as it does highlight out the subject but it certainly does not look natural as you would see during the dive.
f3nikon
Guest
Good point, I forgot to ask the poster if he/she liked the look of a black background in the first place.
Thank you both very much for taking the time to provide me with this information. I actually do like the option of being able to produce a picture with a back background but do also like to see what is actually 'seen' by divers so this helps as I could take a few photos and experiment with both automatic PnS and manual.f3nikon:
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