in house studio

BBones

Ok, now I have good lights (Alien Bees digibee kit with B800's instead of B400's). The next step, backdrop(s) What size do you recommend? I would be shooting things from a single person to a regular sized motorcycle. I do have a fairly large area that I could set up something (think garage sized but indoor and a ceiling instead of rafters). I obviously cannot leave it set up at all times though so I would need something that could be torn down fairly easy.

Fire away folks.

pathfinder

I bought a set of 10feet high background stands, and a roll of studio grey paper - 107 inches wide wide and 12 yards long on a roll. Makes a nice smooth background with no seam at floor level.

I could have gotten darker or white - but chose grey because I thought that I could make it appear darker or lighter depending on how it is illuminated. And since it is already grey, setting white balance is duck soup. But I think darker than medium grey would be better now.

Most of my interest for studio shots tends to favor B&W so a colored background was less interesting for me.

The roll of paper will run from about $30.00 to more than $150 depending on what you chose. Cloth or muslin will run more. I think I spent about $150 bucks for stands and paper both. You can buy the paper in lesser widths - like 53 inches.

http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?op=searchresults&searchinfo=background%20paper&comparison=wa&Startat=21

To store it I just roll the paper back up into the shipping tube it was delivered in. Paper is frangible, and will be consumed as you use it, so there will be some continuing expence if you use it frequently. It makes a nice totally seamless background.

If you go to Greg Gorham's website, he used to have shots of part of his studio which was a continuously curved wall with no corners at all at floor level - so he could shoot from several directions and never see a wall seam. Cool!! Worth looking at his website.

BBones

hmmm, 53 inches wide seems to be the norm. That seems kind narrow to me, just a little more then 4 feet in width. 10 feet high should do me for height though.

pathfinder

107 inches wide is MUCH nicer.....:):

Art Scott

'I really like muslin or clothe much better than any paper....if you keep rolloning paper soon it will crease..also a muslin or cloth background are much lighter than a paper one.......also you use a cable ran fron wall to wall near the ceiling and hang the background using drappery clips also you could devise an easy want to store by hanging off to the side.....most theatrical supples will sell you raw muslin for approx $3 per linear foot and you can dye them at home...a little messy but saves a ton of money...I have even painted them with surplus blk house paint (exterior latex thinned a lot to cut the weight down and to get better penetration of the muslin, then ob the reverse side paint it white or some other color).

I started out with thunder gray paper myself and after my forst client walked on it with wet shoes it was shot or at least the first 4 feet was ruined, so I quickly bought a piece of 10' X 30 ' muslin and painted it.

If shooting color.. black is the best option for a backdrop, with a little device called a Z-FRAME you can place 12" sq pieces of theatrical color gets (rosco gels) and change that black to most any color or combo of colors (rosco gels sell for about $4 ea approx 24 x 30"....blk hold the color and white and the greys will reflect it off and it doesn't show up very well at all.

If you live near a Univewrsity with a theater dept you may be able to have them paint dye on e for you for real close to free (paint dye is a dilution of Supersaturated Roscopaint) and you can brush it on or dip thewhole background into it using a 50 gal drum (i suggest a plastic drum)

just mho

chrisjlee

Art Scott wrote:

If you live near a Univewrsity with a theater dept you may be able to have them paint dye on e for you for real close to free (paint dye is a dilution of Supersaturated Roscopaint) and you can brush it on or dip thewhole background into it using a 50 gal drum (i suggest a plastic drum)

just mho

i wish i knew about that one.

morrisphotography2003

BBones wrote:

Ok, now I have good lights (Alien Bees digibee kit with B800's instead of B400's). The next step, backdrop(s) What size do you recommend? I would be shooting things from a single person to a regular sized motorcycle. I do have a fairly large area that I could set up something (think garage sized but indoor and a ceiling instead of rafters). I obviously cannot leave it set up at all times though so I would need something that could be torn down fairly easy.

Fire away folks.

check out www.dennymfg.com they have everything that you will need.
Bob.