Photo Shoot on a White Background: Home Made Setup

Hi,

Here’s the home made setup, to shoot on a White Background. Many of us including me find it difficult to shoot seamlessly on a white background. Being associated with the stock images, I find it very useful to have a collection of people portraits on a white background. Simply because the usability of the images multiplies when you shoot on a plain background - as most of the time designers want to place cut outs of the people on their customized designs; which makes it easier for them too.

So, I’ll try to share and explain the setup I made to get seamless images on white background.

Let’s list out the things we need for this kind of Setup: (Please refer image below)

1 - Foam boards - 8x4 ft (2 nos) Costs me around Rs 900 per sheet. Stick on the wall with a Adhesive
tape.

2A-2B - L shaped Wooden Panel – 7ft High and Two feet Wide so if you fold it the one leg of ‘L’ would be 1 ft Wide. I got it done from one of local Hardware Shop and it costs around Rs 1200 in total.

3A-3B – Strobe Lights (2 nos) which will be focused on the Background ONLY.

4 - Foam boards - 8x4 ft (2 nos) Costs me around Rs 900 per sheet. Placed on the floor and properly
connected with the foam boards (1) coming down from the wall.

5 - Place where our model will be standing/sitting

6 - Main Light

White Background: Home Made Setup

Let’s talk about the distances between the props. After putting the Foam Boards (1,4) in place, install your Strobe Lights (3A,3B) in a straight line from the edges of the Foam Boards with a distance of 3-3.5 ft and turn the focus of the light towards the Background (1); say around 20 degrees. Now place your Wooden Panels (2A-2B) covering the Strobe Lights such that the reflection of the flash should not fall on the Model; this is quite useful technique to avoid extra light falling on Model’s Head and Shoulders from behind or on the entire Body edge - in case of a full length shot.

Now, ask your Model to stand in the middle (5) of your Foam Boards (1,4) and make sure that the distance between the wooden panels and your Model should be at least 5ft, ideally it should be more say around 7-8 ft but being a Home Setup we need to manage it within the area we have.

You can now place your Main Light (6) in whichever side you want and start shooting. I have used 50mm fixed focal lens from Canon for this series. The other main aspect to look at is your F Stops. If you are getting F 22 on your background lights then the Main Light should read F11 you try increasing it to say F13 or F14, in this way your main model will look little dark and under exposed but when you do a post processing and when you increase the exposure or brightness you will get Pure White Background and with your Model/Subject exposed appropriately. I have to do bit of post processing because of the lights falling back on the subject too harsh. The reason is nothing but the constraint of the space. Hope I’ll have a proper studio setup soon, where I don’t have to move our Sofa/Couches and Tables to make space in our living room for this setup.

Here are few shots I clicked on this setup:

I hope you find this piece of information useful, may be a bit of it, if not all… Drop me a line if you need any further info on this setup and shoot @ Vickramh Raghuvanssi Photography

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Vickramh