A Primer on Backdrops: Canvas vs Muslin vs Vinyl vs Poly Canvas

I'm shopping backdrops and am finding myself a little confused by the variety of materials that are available (and their prices).

I'm set with a muslin in black and paper in white (though I may upgrade to vinyl at some point for the white).

What I'm shopping right now are the "old master" kind of backdrops; deep colors with a hot spot as well as some scenics. Canvas, muslin, vinyl, and poly canvas keep coming up but I'm not sure I'm clear on the relative advantages/disadvantan​ge of each.

Can someone please offer some insights? Thanks.

Im a total newbie with my studio so have only really used paper rolls. The only disadvantage with the paper is creases, it's not like you can iron them out! I know you can photo shop this but the less creases the better. I was looking at the vynil option, would be interesting to see what others think of it. Im thinking more for the wipe clean option, whereas with the paper, it's once used then thrown away, which is a waste of money..

Muslin typically wrinkles. Good stuff is expensive.

Paper is nice clean look but then doesn't work for some type of shots. For some it the preferred option.

Canvas is higher end suff, no wrinkles but heavier and more expensive.

If buying black/white or solid colors muslin get something like Denny's Freedom Cloth.

Agree with Bobby, the Denny Freedom cloth is very nice, and solid colors are on sale right now, use code 6532 at checkout. 8x10 is $99 shipped, 10x20 is $129 shipped.

Their computer printed freedom cloth patterns are very popular and go on sale frequently.

For white, I use seamless paper, for black, I have fabric that I hate, so I am ordering the black Denny 8x10.

Don't forget about the Lastolite knitted backgrounds. They're similar to the Denny freedom backgrounds and can be clamped off to light stands or Autopoles to completely remove all wrinkles without ironing or steaming.

I have a couple of muslin backdrops, and a white vinyl.

I absolutely love the vinyl. I can't recommend it highly enough, and I'd love to get some more. It does have a few drawbacks though:

1. It was expensive;
2. It takes up a lot of space to store, you can't fold it like muslin;
3. It is not as wide as the muslin. My vinyl is only 9' wide compared to the 10' muslin I have, and I really miss that extra width. I could have got a 10' wide vinyl, but with the additional shipping that extra foot in width was going to double the price.

I've heard some people complain that vinyl is a poor choice for a backdrop material because you can get a reflection of the lights coming back into your shot. I've never seen that problem.

To get a perfectly white background I still need to light the background seperatly to the subject, but that is the same with any material.

On the plus side it never wrinkles and it is very durable. Over the past few weekends I've had hundreds of dancers come through on to that backdrop. I had just finished scrubbing it with a brush and floor cleaning solution when I saw this thread.