How can I get full-length 'shadowless' portrait photography?

Question

I have little experience in this field of photography. I would like to get a "shadowless" photo on a gray background. An example of what I want I found on the Internet:

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My results are unfortunately bad. I use two 180x120 softboxes and radio synchronizer. One softbox was placed right in front of the target another softbox 45 degrees from the target. They are set to the same power. I use Canon EOS 5D Mark III with Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens. I upload simple example (ISO 100, F9, 1/125). Although the photo is slightly underexposed

The photo was unsuccessful. As I understand it is surely the wrong scheme of light. But I can not understand how to achieve a shadowless effect as at the top of the photo. And of course my photo doesn’t look like a contrast compare to others.

Answer 1

Your results would improve if you change your lamp placement so that some shadows are realized. I am talking about the face as well as the garment. Set the frontal lamp at ½ power and the side lamp at full power. If the power is non-adjustable, back-up the frontal lamp so that it is about 1 ½ times the distanced from the subject as the side light. Such a lash-up will create the shadows you need to give an illusion of depth and add some pizzazz. Too much diffused light results in flat photographs.

The above set-up will create shadows on the background. You can remove these shadows via your photo editor or – illuminate the background with a dedicated lamp. You adjusts its power and or distance from the background to darken or lighten. For a permanent set-up – use a translucent background and illuminate from the rear. This will yield a shadow less background provided you can evenly illuminate.

Also, if editing using a photo editor is not your forte, consider, shadows are not as distracting if they are restrained.

Answer 2

The picture used as the example has probably been retouched in photoshop to even out the background and get rid of any unwanted shadows, a procedure that is quite easy in photoshop and very common.

Answer 3

This is a very late response, but hopefully useful.

If there is light there are shadows. You can either project them somewhere you do not see them or illuminate them with more light.

1. The first idea would be to use a background further away so the shadows are only projected on the floor. This also gives you the chance to illuminate the background more easily to kill those shadows. This means you need to use more than only two lights. You probably need 3-4.

2. But another tip to have a flatter background is to put your model on a glossy white floor. Shadows are less prominent on a white floor because the perceived image depends more on the background. So, if you evenly illuminate the background, your floor will be also even.

Of course, you will have a slight reflection of your model on the floor, but normally this reflection is easier to retouch than a shadow on the back.

Answer 4

Have you considered a ring-flash?

These are often used in macro photography to eliminate shadow, but there are large ring-flashes for studio work, too.

By surrounding your lens with a light source, it ensures that the shadow is behind the subject.

Ring-flashes tend to be high-contrast, but some manufacturers have light modifiers — reflectors or softboxes — that spread out the light and make it lower contrast.

Powerful studio ring-flashes can be pricey, especially if you don't already have a pack-and-head system. I use Profoto Acute D4 with reflectors, converted to work on my Speedotron packs. I have also modified large "beauty dish" softboxes to work with the Profoto. That results in absolutely shadowless shots of even large items, but your catchlights will be little doughnuts. :-)

Finally, here is a cheap (under $20) light modifier to work with your speedlight to give it ringflash capabilities. I have one, and find it is okay, but a bit uneven, and I don't really like speedlights. It may be all you need, or it may help you determine if you want to spend the money on a decent pack-and-head ring-flash.

Answer 5

In the reference example the model is standing with legs fairly far apart. Contrary to what you say, there is still slight shadow visible behind the legs. It's also fairly obvious that the photo was retouched because the shadow looks unnatural.

In your example legs are close to each other, so the shadow visibility is amplified.

Answer 6

In the example photo you'd like to recreate, the model is standing on a continuous backdrop, such as this:

By letting the backdrop make a gentle curve as it approaches the floor, you eliminate the hard light transitions between vertical walls and the horizontal floor. The continuous backdrop, in conjunction with multiple large diffuse lights (as in the product image above), shadows pretty much disappear.

Answer 7

I attached a quickly smashed together light setup.

You will have 2 large soft boxes (diffused) as main light and fill. And in the background 2 strip soft boxes (diffused, no grid) with overlapping lights on the background to eliminate the shadows.

For both fill and key: Bigger softbox is better in this case, as the light wrapping around is helping to minimize shadow.

The fill is better placed as much away as possible (and your room and strobe allows) as this would even out the light.

Placing the lights might get a bit finicky as you want to keep the light off the model, overlap them so, that you are getting no gradients and have them just so bright that the background just touches the pure white brightness.

If you go overboard with the brightness on the background you will lose considerable contrast in the image due to flaring. With that many lights and not much brightness difference on the model, the image will quickly look a bit flat. You somewhat have that in your example image as well.

Also you might nee to play around with the placement and distance of the fill to get the area in front of the model bright enough without flattening the image too much. You might even want to consider another strip box in front down on the area in front of the model just for that purpose.

Alternative: Background light from behind An alternative route would be to use a huge piece diffusion fabric and use the 2 strip boxes from behind. This would make placing the strip boxes easier.

Alternative: Fill from above If you have a huge fill from above, you could also make due with a lot less lights, but usually people do not have studios with a ceiling that high at the hands.

If you have a white ceiling, you could also try bouncing one light up there to see if you can use that instead of the fill.