so, about backdrops ;)

Hey. Still got questions one one subject before I let y'all in peace for a while. What should I look for when getting backdrops? What kind of fabric/paper's good? Should you get any particular kind of stand to hold the backdrop instead of others?

For whatever comes out of this discussion, I'm buying my stuff from here, and here.

What are you shooting? Products, babies, business executives, rock stars?

Cheap muslin or fabric backdrops are almost worthless.

You can get a LOT of use out of a roll of white seamless paper. Get as wide as you can, for the space you have available. 53" is fine for 3/4" shots of a single person or maybe two people close together. You'll need something wider for groups.

Gray paper is also nice; it's harder to blow it out to pure white, but it's easier to color it with gels or to make it drop to clipped black.

People. Either full body shots or head and shoulders or whatever, it has to fit one or more people. I'd like to start doing portraits of local bands as well, as I have a few already interested. So that means groups of people. I was thinking of going for a white and a black backdrop for starters, but if you say gray is smarter, I'll have to consider it.

I started with Muslin, the black was easy to use as the I clipped everything so you did not see any imperfections. The white was kinda a pain to blow out and the feet area was always troublesum. I picked up two 4x8 sheets of white tileboard and use it as the floor and it has helped tons.

However I did just pick up two 9' rolls of seamless paper, one white and one black. I have yet to shoot on them but am very excited to.

nathancarter wrote in post #17091213
What are you shooting? Products, babies, business executives, rock stars?

Cheap muslin or fabric backdrops are almost worthless.

You can get a LOT of use out of a roll of white seamless paper. Get as wide as you can, for the space you have available. 53" is fine for 3/4" shots of a single person or maybe two people close together. You'll need something wider for groups.

Gray paper is also nice; it's harder to blow it out to pure white, but it's easier to color it with gels or to make it drop to clipped black.

I've got a space of about 4m wide so it's definitely not huge but you can fit a small group there. So if paper is fine, what about the stands? Any particular recommendation? I was looking at this one here which could in theory last me even after I got a larger space (which might not be that far away)

check out silverlake backdrops. they are pretty sweet

Paper.

White & neutral grey. Both can be turned into black.

I'm thinking of getting a roll of white paper and one of grey then, and it's down to either this one or this one here, with a Walimex stand.

Or use chromakey green then you can use any digital pic as a background.

Maverique wrote in post #17093069
I'm thinking of getting a roll of white paper and one of grey then, and it's down to either this one or this one here, with a Walimex stand.

White and gray give you lots of options. If your studio is deep enough you can get the gray to go black by underexposing it and not allowing spill. paper is simple, less wrinkles, but not very portable.

I bought a cheap backdrop set up with three continuous lights on ebay but did not pay attention to the backdrop sizes.
It came with 10x 5 black, white and chroma key.
Only enough to do one person, so on a low budget I was in Menard's one day and saw a painters drop cloth. It was large enough to have people stand on it but heavy as well, the color is off white and I plan on dying it later. So far pretty good results.
I will add a couple of images if I can....

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JTParretti wrote in post #17099640
I will add a couple of images if I can....

JT, you need to get your subjects at least six feet in front of the background AND you need to add a light (or lights) to illuminate the background separately from the subjects. Properly placed, the background lighting will also make the wrinkles disappear. If the background in your photo with the subjects were lit as it is in the background-only photo, there would be a significant improvement.

I have shot both muslin and seamless and I have to say....seamless paper is the way to go! It is so nice to not have to clone out wrinkles!!

Maverique wrote in post #17093069
I'm thinking of getting a roll of white paper and one of grey then, and it's down to either this one or this one here, with a Walimex stand.

knowing that you only have a couple of lights, you might have a hard time pushing grey to white. So, IF you want the option of white, you need white. I have white and medium grey paper.

as far as the stand is concerned, i almost bought a telescoping/collapsibl​e cross bar before realizing that if i was going to be traveling anywhere i would have to have a long roll of paper with me anyway, so a collapsible crossbar really wouldn't provide a benefit. It seems the benefit from a collapsible crossbar only comes when using fabric backdrops. I made a crossbar from EMT (lightweight galvanized metal pole that electricians run copper wire through underground) and two EMT angles. I put it on regular light stands. I'll try to post a pic in a bit.

my persnoal pref is black velvit as it dose not reflect light.....paul