# Trying for a white background...any C&C??



## birdfish (Jan 30, 2012)

I was trying to get a handle on getting a white background so I can do some maternity photos for my cousin in a few months. Any suggestions or C&C is appreciated. 

1. This is a cardboard cutout of Woody from Toy Story that I got from my son's room. Had to wait til he fell asleep because of the lights I was using. 






2. Here is a picture of my setup.  I had the 2 500W work lights on each side and then I used flash bounced off the ceiling to light my subject. 
Just picked these lights up from Lowes but man didn't realize how much heat they would produce.  KmH suggested the brooder work lights in an earlier post but I couldn't find any at Lowes.  Maybe try Home Depot?  What type of bulb would I use for the brooder lamps though?


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## 12sndsgood (Jan 30, 2012)

background looks yellowish to me on my screen. its calibrated. but then again i have some colorblind issues lol.


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## dxqcanada (Jan 30, 2012)

You will have a problem between the colour temperature of the flash vs the lights.
The lights will be warmer so you will see a yellowish tint to the background and a cooler tone to the foreground subject that is lit by the reflected flash.


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## birdfish (Jan 31, 2012)

12sndsgood said:


> background looks yellowish to me on my screen. its calibrated. but then again i have some colorblind issues lol.



It very well may be yellowish, my montior isn't calibrated.


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## birdfish (Jan 31, 2012)

dxqcanada said:


> You will have a problem between the colour temperature of the flash vs the lights.
> The lights will be warmer so you will see a yellowish tint to the background and a cooler tone to the foreground subject that is lit by the reflected flash.



Any suggestions on how to remedy this?


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## CCericola (Jan 31, 2012)

Gel your monolights/speelights to mach the temperature of the continuous background lights. The background lights will be too hot to gel.  Just tape or velcro the gel over the flash. Then you can white balance the whole scene without anything looking odd.


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## CCericola (Jan 31, 2012)

Also, your background lights look a tad too bright. It will make your subject glow from the back and won't look nice.


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## KmH (Jan 31, 2012)

Yep! There is a lot of light reflecting forward off the background. You wiill also be getting unwanted light spilling from the constant lights onto your subject too, which will cause a loss of contrast. You'll need to put something between the constant lights and the subject to control that. Many of us use bifold doors for that.

Go read this: http://zackarias.com/for-photographers/photo-resources/white-seamless-tutorial-part-1-gear-space/


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