Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have seen a lot of different pictures where the background has been completely blacked out and only the subject is left in color. I was wondering if this is a lighting trick or a photoshop technique?

Here's an example

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bigdnutz
1.2 Suriname Boa
1.0 Venezuelan Boa

just so I don't get in trouble. This isn't my pic, just a pic I saw that inspired the question.
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bigdnutz
1.2 Suriname Boa
1.0 Venezuelan Boa

No photoshop needed. It's a small aquarium with black paper on the opposite side, and lit from above, and a flash used.
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Lamar, Debbie, Nathaniel and Iggi :>~

for herps it is fairly easy to achieve as well, particularly if you are photographing them on a branch or something.

It requires -

- a piece of black cloth a few feet behind the specimen
- a fast flash sync speed and no ambient exposure (fast shutter speed)
- the flash off the camera, held at an angle to minimize background light.
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Chris Harrison

The background color doesn’t matter if it’s far enough behind the subject and you use flash. This is an example. Pictured is a yard clipping of some kind held in a vase on a table. The wall located about 15 feet behind the subject is white. I used an aperture of f/11, shutter speed 1/125 second, flash handheld vertically over the lens and extended towards the subject. Enough flash is deployed to expose the subject correctly, but the background is severely underexposed and therefore appears as black. It looks like a similar technique might have used on the shrimp photo you posted.

Cheers,
WK

I'll be trying all of this out once I'm finished with finals this week. I'll post some of the resulting pics. Thanks again for all the good ideas.

Rich
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bigdnutz
1.2 Suriname Boa
1.0 Venezuelan Boa

all the above is true and yes, and in situations where the other techniques dont work, photoshop to the rescue.

MDK

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