What size backgrounds?

[Harry Settle]

I am going to be doing some formal portraits at a customers home, camera flash only (maybe). I have been looking at purchasing a mottled grey collapsible background. Choices seem to be 5x7 and 8x16 for what I am looking at. I am curious if a 5x7 background is big enough for me to separate the subject couple from the background without too much shadow.

[Conk]

Hmmm. Hard to say. You do need the distance between your subject and the bg to avoide shadows. What I might suggest is get as much distance as you can and if you still get shadows you'll need to place your lights accordingly. I've also been known to place my 420ex behind my subject pointing at the bg.