Making your own backdrop.

Has anyone had success making their own backdrop? Is there a particular material that works well. I would like to start with grey if possible. Any suggestions? I will be buying a lighting setup tomorrow I think.

Do you mean using plain seamless background paper?

My dad had a huge old screen from when they used to watch the family 8mm (I guess... no sound, reel to reel.. before my time!) movies. He was going to throw it out and I grabbed the screen. Not sure what to do with it yet, it obviously wouldn't work as is because the material is made to reflect light, not absorb it. I would guess whatever you use you'd want to be pretty much flat so as to not create unatrractive reflections from your flash(es) I thought about painting this one primer grey as it's very flat and easy to keep continuous tone across the screen.

I'm interested to hear what others are doing too!

Adam

I don't know if paper is the way for me to go yet. I was thinking something fabric. I'm trying to find out if a particular fabric is better or worse. I caught this bug after using my friends professional studio the other day. What a blast!

I have a silly question Robert as I will setup a home studio in the near future. How will you hang the backdrop on the wall. Will it be like curtains.

Thanks

There are many different ways I've seen it done. You can hang it from the ceiling like you would an old movie screen or on the wall which may take some flexibility away from your setup. I plan on hanging mine from the ceiling and draping it down over a table. I can use it with the table for closeup product shots and remove the table for portraits and groups.

I am curious also. I have a backdrop stand and two muslin 12'x24' backdrops. 1 is white for high key photos and the other has been dyed grey. I would like to hand paint the grey one but not quite sure how to do it. Any ideas?...Dean

I have a piece of heavy black hole black velvet. 48" x 144". Not overly large but there was a wider roll. It works really well but attracts everything and anything, so I keep a lint roller in the bag. It doesn't have a problem with wrinkles, so you can lop it over anything, but the back is simular to nylon and is slippery so it doesn't hang over things really well unless you have half of it on the other side (it slides easily). I am thinking about another color, as I am getting kind of sick of the "floating in space" look of everything.

I have been to the fabric store a few times...good selection...pretty inexspensive and cut to size...

Canvas drop cloths from Lowes or Home Depot make an inexpensive option if you want to paint your background. You can buy them for $20 to $40 depending on size and just paint away. if you screw up, paint over it or flip it over. I'd start with some smaller sizes.

I hit the fabric store when they had a big sale and picked up 20 different textures and colours of fabric (1 yard wide and 3 yards long to hit the floor for no seam) I have used the black so far and it worked awesome! One light to hit the fabric and it showed like a pro!

Joel