How to create black background with iPhone?

[nogreenthumbs]

Originally Posted by Tindomul

Put the subject somewhere bright and the background is considerably darker.
These pics were taken the same way, no special background. The subject was placed in the sun and the background was in the shadows. Also the subject was close to the camera, somewhat.
Masdevallia Cinnamon Twist-02 by César, on Flickr
Masdevallia Haneczka-01 by César, on Flickr
Masdevallia regina-03 by César, on Flickr

Beautiful shots, BTW, César.

What César said exactly. Have the background far away from the subject (and not well lit) and the camera very close to the subject goes a long way to making this happen. The farther away the background is, the farther the light has to travel to get there which means it's weaker when it gets there and whatever gets reflected back has to travel farther to get back and is again, much weaker than it started out.

Camera
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Subject
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background that's not well lit

Not only will this setup help with the dark background, but it also helps with the depth of field that makes this sort of photograph pop. By arranging the camera and subject and background in this way, you should end up with a sharply focused subject and an out of focus background.

[rbarata]

The farther away the background is, the farther the light has to travel to get there which means it's weaker when it gets there and whatever gets reflected back has to travel farther to get back and is again, much weaker than it started out.

To take the most advantage of this effect one must increase shutter speed which, by other hand, will minimize the porblems associated with trembling hands.

[Ray]

I went to my local hardware store and bought a cheap, spring-loaded, roll-up window blind, removed the vinyl blind, and stapled the black velvet to the tube.

Mounted on the wall, and rolled up, it's out of the way, and I can just pull it down for shots.

[estación seca]

Originally Posted by Tindomul

[FONT="Palatino linotype"]Put the subject somewhere bright and the background is considerably darker.
These pics were taken the same way, no special background. The subject was placed in the sun and the background was in the shadows. Also the subject was close to the camera, somewhat.
Masdevallia Cinnamon Twist
Masdevallia Haneczka
Masdevallia regina

Those photo are so incredible I found myself licking the monitor. I couldn't help it.

---------- Post added at 12:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:44 PM ----------

Velvet works with cameras (like phone cameras) that have auto-focus, because the camera can't figure out how to focus on the velvet surface. So it defaults to focusing on the thing in front.