Light or dark background when photographing your model?

General Discussion General Modeling Discussion
1

Anyone know which is best. To have a light background or dark background when you photograph your model (with a digital camera) ?

Thanks in advance

Pat

2

I use a blue background myself … don’t know if it’s the best but it certainly works for me.

3

I think light, it will reflect more light into areas that are shadowed.

4

My camera seems to like light backgrounds more. Details seem to show up better.

5

Aside from the background, lighting is also a major factor. You should try to play around with these two factors to come up with the best combo for your camera.

6

The colour of the subject is also important, light colour = darker background and vica versa.

7

Generally, I like a darker backround. Really focuses your attention on the subject.

8

As long as your subject isn’t dark too. I imagine taking a picture of an SR-71 on a black background would be difficult.

But most models are camo or mono colored, so black would not be a problem.

One idea. If you are finding that some detail isn’t showing is to put a white-board above and out of the picture. It should reflect light back down onto the subject. You could even play with the whiteboard, moving it around to see if it fills in any detail that was in shadow.

Putting the subject onto a blue background (presuming it isn’t blue already) is great, because you can then take the picture into Photoshop (or similar picture editor) and replace the background. I think Swanny’s webpage has at least one like this.