What color to buy in seamless?

I am deciding which color to get. I have heard storm grey or thunder grey is best as you can make it completely white or dark and do some very creative things by using gels. I am really interested in doing complete white background shots giving a very sleek look to it but at the same time I also want to have a very dark background too. If I buy pure white then it gives me very few options and because I only want to buy one roll which should I go with? As long as grey would give me that really nice white then I am sold but I just need confirmation before I order since its going to cost me over $100.00 due to shipping .

Thank you.

I've shot using arctic white to achieve white grey or charchol finishes and with a small use of adjustment layers pitch black,

The problem with greys is that getting a quick punch hi key is more effort

If you've got a bit of power in your strobes, medium gray is the one to buy. White, gray and black are easily acheivable according to how you light it, and gray is one of the most receptive colors to gelled lighting.

I have 2 600RX strobes and one 580EX II speedlight. I am thinking I will order the medium grey. I am trying to acheive results such as displayed on Zack Arias's website, but his recommendation is to use 2 lights for background to get that really nice white background look.

I am thinking about ordering this paper exactly http://www.headshotsre​ntals.com …THUNDER-GREY-107-X36.aspx.....$37.00 for shipping comes to a total of $106 for paper but where I live I have no choice.

Using only one background is like wearing the same clothes everyday.

And. If the look you are after is white, I would get a white background. It will be much easier to light and take less power to make it clean. It's just a lot easier to shoot hi-key on a white bkgrnd.

Thunder gray would be my next choice, and it's easier to let that go dark, or gel it to color it.

If you really want to do some white seamless, there is really no substitute for starting with a white paper. In addition, you can get some really nice light greys with it with careful light placement. If you want to bring in color gels mostly then I agree to going with the mid grey seamless. I use three rolls pretty heavily: white, grey and black. Must say I didn't have very good luck getting them shipped to me, lots of kinked tubes that had to be returned. It is worth investigating anyplace within driving distance to pick it up. Really worth the trip especially if you are picking up a few.

Same white background - different looks

Blog links: http://www.zarias.com/​2008/05/

PhotosGuy wrote in post #13866120
Same white background - different looks

Blog links: http://www.zarias.com/​2008/05/

I think you can achieve all that if you have enough space in your studio.

White is the most versatile imo, grey is nice to.

Thank you all for the info, I really appreciate the input. I have decided to go with white paper and maybe in future will invest in other colors. I have sufficient studio space and I hope to achieve some of the results explained by Zack on his blog.