Defeated by black background -- looking for pointers

[No-Pro-mwa]

Originally Posted by CambriaWhat

Just a tangent, but had to chime in:

I can't stand the black backgrounds. Could anything be more unnatural?

Orchids are meant to be seen against green, leafy or brown, woody or grey, stony backgrounds. They do not ever [?] appear in front of a black backdrop in nature.

Sorry, had to rant about this.

They do at night.

[tropterrarium]

One issue on your black background image is the strong directional light from top left. Use a reflector (white cardboard or something fancier like Litedisk) on other side to balance out the light.

Neutral grey exposure seems not to bee too much of a problem, because your image is rather on the dark side, while black background will trick the camera into OVER-exposing the flower, making it too bright.

Everything else what others have said (tripod, diffused light, etc.).

Re black background, it is a great standard background if you want to combine images, or for larger projects, like books. It also brings out the color much better than white (or any other color) background. The flower literally stands out in front of black, but sinks into light colors. Edges of flowers/leaves tend to have specular highlights, so will differentiate very well against black, but will fade into white.
But as always, to each their own. Do what you like. If you want strong bold colors that pop, rather use dark background. If you want gentle pastel colors, chose light background.

[silken]

I use a black background often for reasons mentioned by tropterrarium. To photograph them against a natural green background usually means taking them outside. It is often breezy or windy which makes the plant move, causing blurry images or requiring vary fast shutter speeds, which limits other controls. Or it is a glaringly bright day which doesn't work well. And for myself it is spring, winter and fall much of the year when temps don't allow the plant to safely be outside.