Hello, I just wandered if is it a mistake to have on the macro photos a black background when I use a flash or is it just an esthetic thing? Thank you for your opinions…)) Katerina Galuskova

It's taste/esthetics, i think it helps to put the attention to the subject. I used black background for puffing mushrooms to show the spores it spread.

 

http://1x.com/photo/352168/all:user:167085

 

Impressive image Kenny !!!

 

Katerina, it will take some learning to be efficient with a flash, seems straightforward but its not. The shot kenny posted has a lot of thought behind the making and expertise to pull it off.

 

Just one advice, when you use enough to have a black background, you are using flash as main, lots of light. Many of the macro subjects reflect light back to the camera as specular highlights. One example is photographing assassin bugs, will get a bunch of little bright spots all over the insect, so is best to keep the flash as fill and with a diffuser. Flowers and others that absorb light are not problematic and easier to obtain the black bg if you wish.

 

al

O.K. thank you!

Welcome to the 1X Macro group Katerine. A black background is not a mistake, rather it is consequence of trying to maximize depth of field, freeze movement and the magnification involved in shooting macro with flash. When one weighs using a tripod and long exposure times versus a flash and quick shutter speeds the latter is the better choice for shooting active subjects like insects. It can even be argued that for field photography of static subjects this is the preferred method of shooting to minimize sensor noise and movement due to light breezes. So what causes the black background when we use flash. It’s really quite simple the background behind the subject is too far away to reflect light back to the camera sensor before the shutter closes. If you want further explanation of this just Google "The Inverse Square Law." To combat a black background in macro all one needs to do is shot the subject with the background closer. To illustrate this I offer three examples:

 

This shot was taken with nothing behind the subject for some distance, +2 meters: http://1x.com/photo/623389/all:user:411326

This shot was taken with foliage behind the subject at ~ 10cm http://1x.com/photo/598393/all:user:411326

 

This shot was taken with tall dried grasses almost immediately behind the subject, ~ 5cm: http://1x.com/photo/598436/all:user:411326

 

All shot at f13, 1/200th, ISO100 with diffused flash. The only difference is the distance of the background to the subject. I think there is a place for all three in the macro photographer’s arsenal. The important thing is to understand how distances effect backgrounds when shooting small aperture, high shutter speed, diffused flash, macro photography. You need to make sure to adjust your shooting angle (if possible) to get the background illumination you want, not what someone tells you it should be.

Thank you, William, I understand the mechanism of how it arise. I just wandered which photos are more "acceptable". Of course I like more the colored background and I am going to try to take some background with me in to the forest or meadow. :-)

My apologies Katerina, I mistook your question.

 

To answer your question, the most acceptable background is the one you want not what someone else tells you is acceptable. IMHO, black has it's place as does creamy out of focus natural tones. To me it depends on the detail one is trying to accentuate (or not) on the edges of the subject and the color contrast(s) of the scene. That said, when photographing critters in the field, sometimes the subjects leave us no choice but to accept the angle and background of the space they occupy.

Yes, you are totally right...sometimes even black background is good to see details and not every time is possible to have color behind the bug for example.