Cheaper backgrounds:

I bought a white muslin 9' x 18' and a off white same size. I died the off white black, which came out a dark green/grey color--geeze. Yeah, I used enough die, more than enough according to directions.

I'll keep the gree/grey, since it looks good, but I need a BLACK background of course. I thinking to get the size I want, 9'x18' I'm going to have to sheel out over 100 bucks!

Although many peple are turning to paper, I'm not down with that for now. First, it has to be replaced often unless you only use roll down to floor length and you don't move it around, which gets more expensive than material, and second, if you have a floor scence, you need to put down huge peices of plexiglass, or have a hard, no carpet floor--which I do not. In any event, having to package up and reset my equipment, given little space, paper isn't feasible now.

I think the muslins will work well, the white, and then color dyed when I want them.

However, a piece of muslin 9 x 18 feet is about 40 US dollars. So that isn't cheap either, plus dye.


So let's hear it!

Good backgrounds aren't cheap. $100 for a 10x12 foot muslin isn't too out of line. I got three; a textured blue, textured yellow/orange, and a textured gray that I can make any color with a gelled background light. Amvona has some lower priced stuff, but their shipping is expensive and you don't always get the color shown in the picture. I decided to pay a bit extra at the local pro photo dealer and actually see what I was getting, and don't have any reason to regret doing so at this point. YMMV.

Well, I redyed the black, and this time it is "blacker." I don't think dye will make muslin any blacker at this point. I mean when it's in water, it's dead on black, which tells me the dye did its job. But when dry, it's not as black as say black velvet is. It may be ok though. I'll try it when my lights get here.

What are you using to hold the your backgrounds? I've heard it's pretty easy to make a stand out of pvc pipe. Does that work well?

Yeah I have a PVC background holder that works great,a nd it's easy to break down and wrap up with rubber snubbers for transportation. The 1 1/4" PVC I used is very styrdy too. I've even seen refelctor frames built with it.

I have different sized legs for it to make it shorter and narrower too. My current version is a little over 7 feet tall and 7 feet wide. I use large clothpin type 2" clamps to mount and if I want stretch the material.

You can "blacken" the background quite a bit depending upon exposure. Have you considered painting rather than dying? I don't know the details, but my wife took a class in background painting and dying from a photo school in San Fransisco (don't remember the name). We have a huge array of backdrops- both muslins and rolled canvas. My wife is good enough at the process that she can turn out a painted canvas backdrop for special purposes in pretty short order, then repaint it for another application later. It's pretty far from my own photo work, but as I recall she's a denison of the Sears paint sales, using household paint for a lot of her work. Looks like a lot of fun, and really cheap.

I checked with my wife, and the teacher was Lamarr Williamson and the class was offered through California Photographic Workshops. There's another one scheduled Feb 26- Mar 3: http://www.cpwschool.com/scholarships/lamarrwilliamson.html

Evidently he's from Florida, so there are probably other classes around if San Fran isn't convenient for you.

She said the class paints on muslins as well as canvas, though in our studio setup rolled canvases are more useful and easier to store than yet another bagged muslin.

Wooops! Just read the link more closely, and I sent you to the details for a Williamson scholoarship. Evidently he died three years ago. I'd still follow the link to CPW and see if they offer other classes.

Sorry for the confusion.

Hank, thanks for the info. The only problem with painting muslin is that it must be then rolled to prevent cracking the paint, right? I ahve very little room, so crush bags are nice Yes, I did mess with exposure and light control, and actually got a solid dead black BG with the subject only 3 feet from the background. The main problem is that my space is very limited. I need to get the subject, for black backgrounds, about 10 feet from it.

You're beginning to discover that for some studio techniques, there is no substitute for working space. Separating the lighting of the subject and background (whether you want a black or white background) is one, and getting a decently sharp subject and smoothly blurred background is another.

Talked to my wife again. She suggested checking discount stores for king-sized vellour blankets. They are cheap and come in a wide range of colors. She has accumulated quite a few, buying them when she's on the road for a shoot, but needs an additional background. They fold even smaller than a stuffed muzlin, plus they are lots cheaper.

dw: There is also the option of using chromakey backgrounds and then swapping in digital backdrops. The only catch here is that you need to be careful with your lighting to make sure that light from your chromakey doesn't bounce back onto your subject.

The following two images were both made with chromakey green screen and then had a digital background subbed in after the fact:

http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/image...05/04/00398.php
http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/image...05/05/00429.php

You can buy CDs with 100 backgrounds for as little as $20 on eBay if you shop around. It's a very cost effective alternative if your budget isn't what you'd like it to be. The chromakey backdrops themselves start at $35 for something suitable for doing head shots and go up from there.

OK I get what "chroma key" means now. It's a color that is easily understoof by Photoshop or othter digital manipulation programs, and thus ewasily substituted for other backdrops. Right? If so, that is a very interesting work around, and perhaps in teh future, main stay. I mean one back drop beats 40 or more, as long as it looks natural, and your photos do.

Unfortunately, chroma key backgrounds REQUIRE separation between the subject and background, unless you like a blue or green glare on the subject from background spill. Green highlights in a subject's hair and clothing are generally bad juju.

Exactly right. Chromakey can be a disaster in confined spaces where the light from the backdrop bounces back to contaminate the subject -- you wind up with large chunks of your subject going missing.

Same old room problem. Still, it's a good idea. I'm searching around for studio room. I may be able to rent a coffee shop from a friend of mine after hours. I figure if someone wanted to set up a studio in their off hours for another 100.00 per month, that would be better than no dollars per month.

I would start out with a simple grey backdrop. You can alter its appearance by placing inexpensive coloured gel filters over the lights you use to illuminate it. A small sample pack of theatrical lighting gels that costs $20 can turn a simple grey backdrop into any one of thirty different colours. There's also the option of changing the colour in Photoshop, but my preference is to do as much as possible in camera.

These images were all made using the same backdrop, but by either changing the colour of the background lighting or changing the colour in Photoshop:

http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/image...05/12/00851.php
http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/image...05/09/00726.php
http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/image...05/10/00768.php

This is a 10x18 foot backdrop that cost me $99 on eBay a couple of years ago.

Thanks for posting your photos. I always like to see what other are doing. True enough. I have a black and white 9x 18 backgrounds now. I'll get another muslin and dye it grey. I actually set up my studio in my brother's woodshop tonight and took my very fist portraits. He has open beam ceilings and enough room to set things up correctly. I'll post some of the results when I get around to it. My initial feeling is that for my first time, I did pretty good. I didn't have any gels or reflectors, except some cardboard with white sides, you know stuff like that. I also used all three lights, which I've heard is a fast way to the looney bin for begginers. I know I turned all of the lights off near the end of the shoot and just practiced with one reflector and one light, which was much easier. By looking at your photos, I can see what I did wrong as opposed to right. Those are some nice photos you took. But I at least understand my mistakes pretty quickly. One problem is that my LCD screen on my laptop made the photos seem under exposed. So they turned out with more light than I needed, among other things. I'll try to get them up tomorrow.