FREE LIVE Webinar and Q&A with UK based Photographer Glyn Dewis going through how to take Dramatic Low Key Portraits Anywhere with the Invisible Black Background technique using just one flash!
Hi Glyn, im new here, but after this great tutorial, its need to be mention one important thing about using this technique with hss speedlights. One of the downside of using hss is that it is reducing the flash power a lot. And this is the situation where nd filters can comes very handy. Especialy variable nd ones. By using nd filter to reduce ambient light you can keep the maximum power of the speedlight exactly at the sync speed. It might be very clever in really bright sunlight when power of the flash in hss mode is insufficient. Keep doing this great job Glyn!
Hi Glyn. I'm not a member of the email group but I have subscribed and found this video on RU-vid. Absolutely excellent tutorial. I've been feeling a bit de-inspired (if that's an actual word) recently due to these restrictions. I've been focusing (pardon the pun) on retouching but you've given me some inspiration to get back out there so many thanks.
I know this is a year on by now, but I always learn so much about photography (and editing) from your videos. I’m a far better photographer now than I was in large part thanks to your videos!
Another brilliant video Glyn! The method you demonstrated here to make dramatic portraits anywhere is absolutely great. As always your method of teaching is brilliant. The technique is fabulous and you made it simple. A big thank you! Oh and my answer is YES for a webinar on the photo of your friend with a van, would love to see the retouching.
@@glyndewis Glyn! Request you to do a video on retouch of the picture of your friend Steven (timing 8.40 of this video). It would be great to see that retouching process. Thank you in advance. Cheers!
Thank you for sending a link today. This is a very valuable webinar. I can take with this method photos middle on the sunshine day.Thank you very much! I have all your books..
Thanks Glyn. I have used HSS outside but using it, deliberately, to invoke a black background is applying reverse logic. Brilliant. I am itching to try it, when the rain abates.
Great video Glyn. There is another way to do this also which might be worth mentioning. You could take the shutter speed to say 1/2000 and yes you can still see a little background, but in lightroom under masks you can just create a selectsubject mask and then duplicate it and invert. Then you can just dump the exposure on the background to make it pure black. Maybe will help in some tricky situations or if you dont have a camera that can handle 1/8000 sec
@@glyndewis no problem - now i go back to handwringing my camera choice. I bought a Dlux 7 Leica but for the life of me cant get sharp images, so am thinking of buying a Nikon 6 or 7 or canon r6 or even a sony alpha R7 iii. Too many choices. Really need a lens to come with it to lol. The joys :D
Hi Glyn, excellent video, thanks for that! I'm going to give this a try as well, and I'm considering 2 studio flash lights: the Godox QT600 II or a Godox DP600 III. The QT has a HSS up to 1/8000s and the DP apparently can sync up to 1/2000s. Is the HSS up to 1/8000 necessary when shooting indoors, or could I get the same results with a sync speed of 1/2000 ? Many thanks for your feedback
Thanks Glyn. A great webinar. I have been in a photo slump for a while and this has started to stir my creative juices to produce some new material. Would love to see a video about the truck shot.
Hi Glyn. Invisible Black Background will be used on the 25th & 26th of June 2022 to see if I can get this to work. Hopefully it will be not too bright and reasonably overcast/cloudy so I can get 8000th of a second to kill the ambient and take the stress from the flash having to shoot at say f8. I will give it a try at an event I am shooting with a large number of Dogs. looking forward to the results :)
❤👍 🔔from germany. I found your chanel. It is the best i ever found, i have to see every video three times - because of my bad english. There is no comparable chanel in germany. At the moment i by some stuff from Leica (i Live only 1 hour far away from Wetzlar) and start again with my forgotten hobby. You would be very helpful. Thanks 👍👍👍 Greets from Carsten at Villa Petersberg, near Koblenz
Thank you so much Carsten. Its' been a few yers now since I was over in Germany but used to be there quite a lot working with friends in the industry near Heidelburg. Love it there!
Cool video, I have used a lot of your tools/explanations in the past :) But One thing I do think, maybe the retouch of your HSS pictures, That mannequin head, you can see the stand, and a little of the background, I assume it will be retouched afterwards to make it completely Black. :)
I tried the HSS, it was actually working with my speedlight on the camera but not off camera with my trigger. So therefore I'd have to say that not all triggers support HSS. (unless I'm overlooking something of course 😉)
Just had a speed light. First of all focused on my foot and locked focus then knew how far to have camera from dog. Light to one side in one hand, camera in the other.
Hey Glyn, great video with god info,,,,,, but i did all of the settings in the video like you explaind.. but still i dont get a black or dark background, its still bright, i use Canon 5d mark 4 with a 50mm prime, and my Canon 600 RT flash. Im i the problem??
Great video, Glyn. I surely wil try this technique. One question: By closing the shutterspeed, the screen becomes totaly back, I'm with you with this. But now that the screen is pitchblack, how do you compose your framing if you don't see a thing? Surely I've missed something because while you shoot your manequin (15:49), you seem to look at your camera screen, not into the visor. How do you manage?
Great question mate. On a Mirrorless Camera, when you make it black then turn on the remote trigger, you can then see the subject. On a DSLR obviously you still see everything clearly when looking through the viewfinder. Hope that helps.
@@glyndewis Thanks for the answer, Glyn. In the meantime, I've found another turn around: In the Sony A6000 I can disable the "effects" on the Live view display. It should do the trick. Again, thanks for all the great tutorials, they help me so much for my work. Gratitude.
Glyn, I tried your technique and it blew my mind! With just a few tweaks, I made some amazing results. The rest is, like you said, practice,practice, practice. I'm so glad. Gratitude.
Hi there ! Just a quick suggestion. At around 18'10, you talk about ways to get even less light into the camera - to get a black background - and the problem of a very bright sunny day... I think using a ND filter as an extra gear can provide more flexibility and good results for this. Anyway thanks for sharing your tips and techniques, extremely usefull !
I would go with an ND filter and avoid HSS for a couple of reasons. 1. ND filters allow for a more creative used of wide apertures. 2. HSS is a strobe of light which is actually weaker in strength. A single flash produces a stronger source of light if required. There is nothing worse than looking flustered in front of a client when your original shooting plan does not work. Give yourself as much leverage as possible : )
Greetings from Canada. Glyn I have an interesting situation here. Want to apply your artificial black background technique. Got a Z6 Nikon and I set it with the followings: ASA 50 , Always manual mode, Speed 1/8000 sec with HSS, Aperture I'll go to the max F 22, meetering any (mostly centre weighted which is immaterial here), AND I STILL CAN'T GET A COMPLETE BLACK BACKGROUND. Looks as if my sensors are extremely sensitive or out of calibration. What is your opinion?. My flash is the SB 700 and if I shoot a flower with the sky as the background, the sky is still not black but very light blue! /Thank you
Ahmed are you doing this on. aVERY bright day outside? If you are and the highest shutter speed, closed down aperture and lowest iso still don't give you a black background then it's still just too bright. You would need to wait and do it a little later in the day or just find somewhere with a little bit of shade.
I'm just a hobbyist, but would LOVE to implement this technique. I have an older cannon DSLR and have never used flash or kits of any kind, just some natural light photography. Can you recommend an inexpensive light and softbox that could be used to achieve IBB? It's fine if I'd need to use them indoors to reduce ambient light or in the evening instead of midday.
I am quite a newbie. I tired to follow your steps but was unable to achieve the results you mention in the video. Perhaps it is because of the limitation of the camera and equipment I used. I used A Sony A6000 with Godox Tt350s. Firstly, the highest Shutter speed in HSS for the camera is limited to 1/4000 only which means I am not able to get the outdoor ambient light completely black (in the LCD monitor or viewfinder) as you have shown in the video. Is this because I am not able to achieve 1/8000 shutter speed? Regardless, when I do take the Pic using HSS FLASH in 1/4000 speed, the output background is all black but the subject is not well lit (under exposed) despite placing the flash very near to the subject at full power. I am confused that despite the ambience light is not dark in the monitor, the actual picture has black background but the subject is not exposed properly despite the short distance of placement. After watching your excellent video, I really wanted to achieve similar results but I failed to do so. I am trying to find out if this is due to the limitation of my camera or flash (not enough power) or both or is it because I am doing things wrong still. Appreciate your advise.
I know this is an older video but I'm hoping someone can offer some guidance. I've got my kit set up in my house for some testing. So, to be clear, I'm not outside battling the sun. I'm at f.5.6...my ISO is at 100...but even with my speed light set as high as it will go....putting my shutter speed at 1/8000 doesn't offer any exposure at all . Everything is still super-dark. And if I slow down my shutter speed....now I start getting all that ambient light in my shot. Am I doing something wrong? Or is there something I should be looking at that I haven't mentioned here?
i wonder if my flash just isnt powerful enough I tried doing this inside. I knock the ISO down all the way and slowly bring up the shutter speed until i get flash on the face. By the time anything shows up the background is also visible to some degree. I just picked up a styrofoam from the craft store, will practice some more. I have a godox tt600
But if you have walls near the subject they have to be dark color or you have to use black V panels, because the light will reflect. You might also want black ceiling and background. The light might reflect from the ground depending on the surface. And yes, you can use an ND outside, if you want to use a big aperture. Maybe an ND 10 and a powerful flashlight will do it.
I kind of thought the reflections off nearby walls was an obvious thing but maybe should have mentioned it. As for NDs ... why would you? More kit to buy and then you have to have the right size for each of the lenses OR steup up rings. Plus focusing with a 10 stop on the front becomes difficult. The technology is alredy in existence to not need the extra expense / kit.
Quick question please? I tried this with my Nikon flash and Yongnuo trigger. I have to put the flash to manual as the trigger won't work with TTL. Although the Nikon has the setting for Flash Sync enabled, I till get the line across the picture. Is this because it's in manual or is it purely because of the setup please? Thanks
Please can you put the links of flash that I should have to do this portrait with a black background . Cheaper one's please. I have the cheap one that attaches to the camera and it doesn't allow me to do this. I have canon m50 for camera. My current flash is called a unvi 2 flash and I can not do it with it I get the line at the too 😭
Hi There. If you can trigger it ‘off camera’ then yeah I see no reason why not. I am going to be doing an updated video for this technique bringing in High Speed Sync etc
@@glyndewis Hello again, been asking around in the forums and someone suggested the Nissin i60A but Nissin seems to have reliability issues so I was thinking of the Fuji EF-X500 for my X-H2S. It supports high speed sync but I am confused, what do you mean "if you can trigger it off camera"? Do you mean I need a flash that can be operated remotely? I though I would just put the flash on the camera, lower the ISO to as low as possible and increase the shutter speed to get that effect. I don't think that EF-X500 can be operated off camera could it?
unfortunately I have only a TT 560 speed light and maximum speed Is 180, there is no way to use HSS with this speed light anyway, this tutorial is the best for sure
I used the invible black background with HSS years ago until one of my godox flashes produced very noticeable banding with highspeed sync at 1/8000 sec with my sony
If you don't have a high speed trigger for you flash, would using an ND filter work? Of course, you would probably need to get your subject in focus before putting on the filter.
