The lighting challenge with a white background is that if you put your subject directly in front of the white backdrop - it won't be recorded as pure white because its being lit by the same light as your subject and since you are going to expose for your subject and the white background is behind your subject the inverse square law causes the white background to look gray. So in order to keep it white - really white - we have to light it.
A simple and quick white background lighting technique is to use a softbox or an OctoDome as the background. This is an excellent way to create high key portraits.
My personal favorite brand in Photoflex. In this video I use the Medium Photoflex White OctoDome with Paul C Buff DigiBee DB800's and a Photoflex Medium sized softbox with LumoPro 180R's.
This Octodome gives me a nice big background that allows me to comfortably shoot vertical or horizontal portraits and headshots and even do some shots cropped from the waist up. A big bonus with the Photoflex OctoDomes is the fact that they are only 16" deep which really helps out if you are working in a tight space. The Medium OctoDome is 55" in diameter and weighs only 4 pounds so you don't need a heavy duty stand to hold it if you are shooting indoors.
With the camera settings established in advance - I am going to turn my DigiBee DB800 which is a 320ws strobe up to full power and take a test shot. When I preview that frame, I want to be sure that I have the Image Highlights feature turned on. The technical term for this is the Blinky feature and what it does is blink in all the areas that are completely blown out and not recording any detail. Depending on your camera brand and model you will usually find this feature in either the histogram or display settings. Check your manual to be sure.
PRODUCTS MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO
Photoflex 5' Medium OctoDome Softbox: amzn.to/2rGgE9Z
Photoflex Medium MultiDome Q39 Softbox 24x32":
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LumoPro LP180R Off Camera Flash: amzn.to/2rqs1GO
DigiBee DB800 Flash Unit: paulcbuff.com/db800.php
amzn.to/3EajkUD
FTC Disclosure: PromarkBRANDS and Photoflex supplied the Medium Photoflex White OctoDome that is used in this video. All words and opinions are my own, and all other equipment seen in the video is my own.
#portraitlighting #photographylighting #whitebackground