Where to buy white studio paper and how to position it (unique situation)

[kempobmx1]

Before you say anything, I have looked around for studio paper and haven't found a US based site selling it yet. Also my situation is a little unique so the help I need isn't quite as straight forward as the title sounds.

I'm the inventory photographer for a Nissan Dealership and we do real studio shooting for the cars, unlike how most dealerships just take a few shots in the parking lot. We have a garage, inside which we have a 3-walled studio with white walls, and a checkered floor. There is a blue, tarp-like, thing across the ceiling, and then the 4th wall of the studio is simply the metal door of the garage. I have two problems: The first is that I often get a blue reflection from the tarp-like ceiling, which trows a blue cast on the cars. The other problem is that when I'm shooting the cars, the metal door is behind me and it does not reflect any of the light from the strobes.

First, I need to find something white to cover the blue ceiling so I don't get this blue color-cast. My two thoughts so far have been a lot of studio paper, or about 10 king sized sheets.

My other problem, which is less of a big deal, but seemingly harder to fix, is making it so there is something white behind me while I'm shooting the cars (while I'm facing into the 3-walled studio). The issue is that I have to keep on moving cars in and out of the studio so it's not practical to have a big stand with studio paper on it, because I would have to move it every 20 minutes. Also the rolls of studio paper I've seen seem a little small, at 9' wide. I'd like to be able to have a 12-15' wide white "screen" that could be easily moved (possibly on wheels?) frequently.

Any ideas?

[george m w]

Talk your manager into letting you paint the 'blue tarp like thing' white ( or grey ).
Why do you want the door behind you to be white ? And if you do....why not just paint it ?

....oh yeah....welcome to the forum !

[drh681]

for the cieling thing perhaps you can change that blue for a gray or white.
failing that; that stuff will take latex paint.
and for the "cover" for the doors ( which I presume to be roll-up )
maybe make a rolling false wall of 2x4 and the thinnest ply avalable, painted white. ( for that matter, you could paint the inside of the door white )
on further thought, as long as you are changing the "cieling" tarp for a white one, get another big enough to go over the door, then leave the door up and you have a giant soft box behind you.

[Mark1]

There are white tarps. They are kind of hard to find, But I have seen them. And as stated above see if yo can paint the door. I would think they would if they are setting space aside just to take images of the cars, they would want them to be as good as possable.

[kempobmx1]

Permission to do that isn't so much the problem. I have free reign to do what I want, as I'm the photographer, and I have plenty of funds at my disposal if need be. To give you an idea, I simply told my boss I needed a 580EX II and two $450 strobes and he just said, "send me the link, you'll have them."

The ceiling isn't actually a tarp. I just said tarp-like thing to give an idea of what it looks like and what color it is. It's hard to explain why, but it's not practical to get it down from the ceiling. That makes painting it or replacing it with a white tarp, out. The most practical thing to do is to cover it over with something else (be it a white tarp, or white cloth). Looking pretty isn't a big deal as the ceiling is about 20ft high and well out of view of the camera. It just needs to be white so it nicely reflects my flashes and strobes, instead of sending back blue light which throws off colors. I'm off work for the week, but when I go back in I will try to get measurements of the ceiling to see if there is a white tarp that is large enough. For now, we can set that issue aside as I imagine a white tarp, or something similar will suffice. Thanks.

As for the "4th wall," I will leave painting the door open as a possible idea, although it would only be somewhat effective. There is about 15ft of space between the garage door itself and where the 3 walls and the checkered floor begins. That space is just concrete floor. I was hoping to be able to have a portable wall or large white screen only about 5ft away from the checkered floor (leaving 10ft behind that before you hit the garage door).

drh681, can you please explain your wall idea if different words? I didn't quite understand what you were getting at but it sounded good from what I could get.

[imahawki]

I assume you've taken some pictures with this setup already since you've discovered these shortcomings. Any chance you could post some?

[sleibrand]

White seamless 12' x 35 yds: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/45561-REG/Savage_1_140_PhotoWide_Seamless_Background_Paper.h tml

Have you thought about "bookends" to go in front of the garage doors? Take 2 pieces of thin plywood (or masonite, foam insulation, etc) and hinge them together on the long side. Paint them white to get a moveable 8'x8' screen. 2 or 3 of these should cover the open space and should be pretty easy to set up/tear down.

[Bumgardnern]

Go to the local grip store and look for V-Flats. They are white on one side and black on the other they usually come in at 4ftx8ft.

[Wilt]

What is the purpose of white doors behind you? Are you trying to use this as a bounce surface, or are you trying to deal with reflections of that back area showing up in the glass and chrome of the autos that you would shoot?

Can you hang a big muslin from the ceiling directly above the cars, so that they reflect the light rather than the blue thing that is above?

[drh681]

perhaps like this?
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm211/drh681/Photodemos/screenwall.jpg
a skilled wood worker could build it so the casters a a bit recessed.

[hawk911]

maybe a simpler idea but somewhat expensive would be to install a shower curtain like veil to cover the door. You'd need a long piece of white material that could be hung so that you can pull it back to allow the cars in/out, and pull it to cover the door when you're shooting. As for the ceiling, is it just to provide some protection from the elements? If not, use more of the white material to cover the ceiling. It really depends on how much of a studio environment you want to create. for that matter, you could hang some drop lighting. I can't find the link now, but there are some great HUGE studios that have incredible lighting up in the ceiling for vehicle lighting.

[kempobmx1]

First off, I apologize for not responding sooner. I've had the hardest time with this forum, operating the thread subscription function. I didn't think to check the thread for a while, because I expected email notifications of responses.

On to my issue.

I assume you've taken some pictures with this setup already since you've discovered these shortcomings. Any chance you could post some?

http://www.marlboronissan.com/New-Inventory.html Pick any car that doesn't only have Nissan Stock Photos. As of this posting, the second car down is a NISMO 370Z. That should be a good example.

What is the purpose of white doors behind you? Are you trying to use this as a bounce surface, or are you trying to deal with reflections of that back area showing up in the glass and chrome of the autos that you would shoot?

Can you hang a big muslin from the ceiling directly above the cars, so that they reflect the light rather than the blue thing that is above?

The purpose is both to reflect flash and studio strobe lighting, and also to eliminate the reflection from outside in the event that I opt to leave the garage door open.

perhaps like this?
http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm211/drh681/Photodemos/screenwall.jpg
a skilled wood worker could build it so the casters a a bit recessed.

I very much appreciate you coming up with a diagram for that. Something to that effect had been my initial idea, however there are two issues with it. Firstly, I've decided that I'd like for the screen to be capable of allowing some light through, though heavily diffused. This would allow me to leave the garage door open, letting sunlight shine on the screen/wall (preferably some kind of thin cloth), helping to further illuminate the studio. The second, and more important reason that I opted to not go with a rolling wall, after all, is that during certain times of year, it would be difficult to maneuver a false wall that would be big enough for my purposes. This is due to the fact that the owner of the dealership stores his boat in the garage (in a gap adjacent to the shooting studio) during the cold months.

maybe a simpler idea but somewhat expensive would be to install a shower curtain like veil to cover the door. You'd need a long piece of white material that could be hung so that you can pull it back to allow the cars in/out, and pull it to cover the door when you're shooting. As for the ceiling, is it just to provide some protection from the elements? If not, use more of the white material to cover the ceiling. It really depends on how much of a studio environment you want to create. for that matter, you could hang some drop lighting. I can't find the link now, but there are some great HUGE studios that have incredible lighting up in the ceiling for vehicle lighting.

Whatever I opt to build, I'm going to be hiring my father who is a free-lance carpenter, to build it. I had him come in and evaluate what I wanted done and give me ideas on how I could do it. His idea was actually very much like yours. He suggested building a hospital-curtain-like system, which would stretch across the "4th false wall" of the studio, 5ft from the checkered floor, and would then curve 90 degrees and meet up with the "1st and 3rd" wall of the studio (2nd, being opposite the false wall I'm trying to create). This is a great idea, which I'm inclined to go with. The problem is that it may actually cost a little more than my boss wants to spend, so I'm still open to new ideas. Any additional ideas, or elaborations on the current one would be great.

As for the ceiling, it's looking like a white tarp measuring around 50'x50' will be the way I'm going. The studio is in a large garage so it does have a roof. The idea behind the white ceiling covering is not protection from weather, but for bouncing flash without the color-cast of the current blue ceiling.

Just a side note: If you look at the pictures on my dealership's site, you'll see all kinds of issues with both interior and exterior shots of the cars. I'm fairly new to the dealership and so I haven't been able to alter the studio the way I'd like it yet. The current hot lights with soft boxes (causing a yellow cast) are being replaced by 320w/s strobes and I've opened another thread regarding how to better light the cars' interior. The end goal of everything I'm doing is to make all the photos look much more professional, as if they were actual Nissan Stock Photos, not dealership inventory photos.