Bald heads!

[noritsuvet]

We seem to be getting a run of bald people coming in for passport photos - and the tops of their heads disappearing into the background  :-/ It's weird, because it's the same canera (olympus DSLR) and lighting setup (on camera existing flash, existing shop lights and electra back flash to illuminate the background)

Turning off the shop lights makes no differeence. Stopping the on-camera makes the background too dark. Anyone else had these problems and any ideas?

[AJLA]

We have the same issues noritsuvet also with ladies with white hair and a few of bot have been rejected by the passport office in recent months.  The only way we have bee able to overcome it is by holding a board at such an angle near the customer it almost creates a shadow to that side of the head.  Which does not look at all  professional !

We intend to make something like a shower cubicle for these instances on a rail which we can pull out.

I'm also going to stock a selection of wigs for bald men (bigsmile)

We have recently had to replace the flash unit on our system with no end of problems, colours shadows everything an absolute nightmare.

[nash]

i`m using Fuji Fineoix S2000HD for the last three years now with FLASH TURNED OFF and printing on FINEPIX IP-10 PRINTER with some minor adjustments on the printer with colour and density great results and no rejects so far. OH! sorry there was one where the passport office said there was a wrinkle in the curtain.

[coloursphotographic]

Hi

you could try using your background light as a hairlight I know bald people dont have hair..but a hairlight on very weak power should do the job just watch its not set on too high a power or the bald head will look too shiny.. or alternatively you could also use a seperate hair light as well as the backlight on weak power this should be just enough to give seperation between the  bald head and your background.

the camera sensor is obviously reading it all as one and not giving any seperation between the two a hairlight should fix this or a refeletor on a stand or even tin foil stuck to the ceiling if your on a budget  placed above the persons head any of these fixed to the ceiling should do the same thing depending what the lights like in the area you use.

hope this helps.

[aussiecameras]

We have bought some new lighting for our passport business and they are some pretty cheap non flash softboxes. We move the subject about 600mm away from the backdrop and just shoot away with a DSLR and 85mm lens.

As the subject is well away from the backdrop there are no shadow problems. And there is much less light hitting the backdrop compared with the subject because the subject is so much closer to the lights than the backdrop. That seems to work in that the background ends up darker than even the most shiny bald guys head so we don't have any problems with the heads merging into the background. In many ways the bald guys are easier as at least we can see where the top of their heads are when we need to get the size right !

These new cheap softboxes are pretty low powered and thats why we chose them for this passport application and a non flash system fixes many problems.

[Colopt]

I used to use a DSLR with a soft-box for the front lighting, with a flash behind the subject to eliminate shadows. The flash at the back also separated the back ground from the subject, no problems with bald heads or white hair. Once it was all set up properly, photos were perfect every time, can highly recommend this set up.