I was asked how I kept the background in some of my shots as black as they are.

I use a black non-reflective background.

I use a big cotton sheet that is without folds or wrinkles.

I put the light near to the model and I put the model as far as possible from the background.

That way I don’t need much light to light the model adequately, and the light falls off quickly and doesn’t reach the background.*

That’s why I need a big background sheet. If the sheet were just behind the model I could use a smaller sheet, but when the background is far behind the model, I need a bigger sheet to fill all the space behind and around her.

I don’t recall the exact distances for this shot, but I guess the flash was in a softbox about five or six feet from the model, and the background was about ten feet behind her.

The principle is easy. Keep the light near to the model and keep the background further away. If you shoot digital you can shoot and look and see what the image looks like.

If you shoot film, beware of cutting down on the distance between the model and the background. You think it looks OK to your eye when you are shooting it, but ignore that rule and you will get caught out and the background will not be black.

You will see the shadows cast by the folds and creases in the background cloth. The cloth will appear grey rather than black.

The point is not to illuminate the background at all.

If you use a paper background you will avoid the problem of light that catches on the folds and creases of the cloth.

But paper rolls are not cheap and they are usually only used by very serious amateurs or professionals.

And provided you are shooting above the floor, you don’t need it. You do need it however, when you are shooting someone right down to their feet, because then you need something that has absolutely no folds or creases – and only paper does that easily.

By the way, this was shot on film – probably Ilford Delta 100 and the camera was either a Nikon FE or a Nikon F90x.

Light Intensity And The Inverse Square Rule

This law of physics tells us how quickly the intensity of light falls off with distance. Imagine the light fully illuminates the model who is five feet from the light. The inverse square rule tells us that the intensity at five feet is 1/5×5 = 1/25 and we made it so that’s enough to light the model.

Now if it’s another ten feet to the background, then the intensity of the light when it reaches the background is 1/15×15 = 1/225 which is 1/9th of the intensity of the light at five feet.

If we had put the model at ten feet, we would have needed to pump more light onto her, and that means more light would reach the background.

Shadow

You know, the same kind of rule applies when we want the background to show, but we don’t want harsh shadows. One way is to diffuse the light with a softbox or similar. But it’s also a good idea to keep the model away from the background – unless we want moody shadows, of course.

I’ve only used this lens on two outings, and with hindsight I realize I was asking a lot of it. I plumped for lower ISO and therefore slower shutter speeds in the belief or hope that the VR – vibration reduction – would cope with everything. But of course it cannot deal with subject movement, and one of the things I found after reviewing shots of some birds is that they move. When pecking and walking, they move. And a slow shutter speed takes the edge off the sharpness of the shot.

I can tell from the nature of the blur that it is not camera shake but subject movement that is the problem.

Here this bird was obliging enough not to be moving.

I shoot a Nikon D200 and which has more or less the same number of pixels as the D60. So it came as a big surprise when I put a card in the D60 to find that a card (it takes SD cards) will hold about 100 RAW shots per GigaByte, whereas the D200 will hold 60. And I guess this is because of the NEF compresson on the D60. There is no option to shoot uncompressed NEF on the D60.

The D200 shoots compressed as well as uncompressed NEFs and at this point I should walk into the other room and see whether I have it set to uncompressed or not, and whether the compression would account for the difference.

But I am not going to because I trust my memory and I am sure that there is not way the compressed or not, the D200 shoots 100 shots to the GigaByte.

OK, in the cause of scientific enquiry, I went and checked, and I’m right – the D200 shoots 60 shots to the GigaByte, whether the NEFs are compressed or not.

The question is whether the extra NEF compression on the D60 results in lower quality images? I have been using the D60 with two lenses – the 60mm macro G lens, and the 12-24mm. I bought the D60 as a kit with the 18-55mm lens but I don’t like it. It is not that I dislike the zoom range or the build quality or the image quality – I just don’t like the way the central part of the lens peeps out when one turns the focal length either way from its mid point.

Turn it down to 18mm or up to 55mm and the central part of the lens slides out and seems very fragile. It makes me nervous about catching it against something as I pass. Hence, I shall probably put it up for sale. But it is light and small, and given that a normal 50mm lens won’t ‘work’ on the D60 because it is not an AF-S lens, I should try the dinky little 18-55mm more. But before I take it out for an extended run, I have to check that its image quality really will hold up against the other two lenses.

I bought the D60 as a back-up to my D200. Since I bought the 70-200mm lens and put it on the D200, I haven’t taken it off. The camera and the lens are wedded to one another and both stare at me suspiciously if I come to near with an ‘I’m going to separate you’ look.

The good and the bad about the D60.
I think the dynamic range is less than on the D200 and it is really easy to blow highlights where the D200 would not. Perhaps it is the metering. I have always been very, very impressed with the metering on the D200, and yet I can crank the exposure compensation up into minus 2 with the D60 and still run into problems. So active D lighting is a necessity and it works. And it is easy to set. Just put your forefinger on the button on the top plate that is next to the shutter and just left of the exposure compensation button. And at the same time, turn the rear command dial one click and it turns Active D-Lighting on. Turn it again and it toggles Active D-Lighting off.

I say ‘rear’ command dial, but there is no front command dial. It’s force of habit from the D200. And that is one tiny niggle, and that is that I forget how to change things sometimes, and I find myself twirling a non existent dial.

ISO is easily changed by pressing the button to the left of the lens mount and turning the rear command dial.

The bad is that it will not autofocus except with AF-S lenses.

So do I like it? Overall, yes. It’s light and quick to use, which makes it suitable for its purpose as a back-up for when I do not want to lug around the D200. And with Active D-Lighting as a means to conquer blown highlights, it is capable of handling even high-contrast scenes.

And the D60 has become a more attractive proposition with the impending introduction of the AF-S 50mm f1.4.

Update regarding the 18-55mm lens
I have been using it and I’m not knocked out about it, but it’s OK. The following are shots I took with it on a trip to London, and one shot of a building in Leeds.

This building is in the financial and business area of London and is known as the Gherkin. That’s not its official name of course, which is the Swiss Re Building. It houses the City of London Mayor’s offices. It’s the first time I’ve seen it this close and my first impression is to wonder about the waste of space as the building becomes narrower towards the top. It is supposed to be buffeted less in the wind than a rectangular building would be. It stands on the site of the Baltic Exchange that was blown up by the IRA in 1992.

This is the courtyard of Somerset House looking towards the wing that houses the Courtauld Gallery. Apart from heading a huge textile and chemical company, Mr Courtauld had wonderful taste in paintings and the gallery is currently (as of the beginning of October 2008) holding an exhibition of Cezanne paintings and drawings. There is lots of other stuff there and it is a wonderful place to visit. Highly recommended.

And here is an open-air cafe in the courtyard of Somerset House. The tent flap had not yet been drawn back and the tent reminded me of hussars and campaigns in India that must have been talked about by gentlemen walking across this courtyard two hundred years ago. (The present Somerset House was built in 1780).

Looking up at a rare glimpse of sun in one of the walkways by the shops at Liverpool Street Station.

Southwark Bridge spanning the Thames by the Globe Theatre. It was the nearest bridge leading to St Paul’s cathedral before the building of the Millenium footbridge in the year 2000. Southwark Bridge is one down from Blackfriars Bridge, a place that makes me think of the very public display of contempt for the law that was shown by the hanging there of Roberto Calvi in 1982.

This building is by the Globe Theatre. It says “Cardinal’s Wharf” above the door, and the plaque on the wall to the left of the door says “Here lived Sir Christopher Wren during the building of St Paul’s cathedral. Here also in 1502, Catherine Infanta of Castille and Aragon afterwards first queen of Henry VIII, took shelter on her first landing in London.”

And this is a building still being built in Leeds, by the river Wharfe.