Choosing Backgrounds

[Justdave]

Ok, now if you have a chose of your own background, how do you choose the right colour or pattern?

Still very new at this...

DAve

[Charlemagne]

it depends on what you are after, what kind of lighting, what I have is a high key white muslin, a pure black muslin, and a grey muslin, and then for my lights I have a bunch of colored filters, basically with the grey background you can use the filters to get any color you want (just about). I also have a few color canvases that I use for school photos.

Hope this helps,

Charles

[Kevin]

If you're looking for just one, I'd recommend a mottled grey one. Check ebay for backdrops at very reasonable prices. I like the backdrops by photo4u. They're gently mottled (for the most part) and come in a variety of colors.

As Charles said, you can use gels on the background to give you a variety of colors.

I've also painted my own. Haven't tried dyeing my own yet though. Or you can even use a plain bedsheet.

[Carlton]

Same as Kevin. The other nice thing about gray is you can throw some color
gels on the background and completely change the color. I've recently
bought a few backgrounds from Silverlake photo (silverlake.com I think).
They are a top quality company in product and service. Also, they have mismatched
backgrounds on sale for an excellent price. I got one awhile back and it's my main background.
The muslin is very heavy and hardly no see through.

[Justdave]

It seems like a big subject to tackle as a new guy to it. I had though of the bed sheet idea and wondered how it would work to start out and experiment with. Mybe I will give that a shot until I get a proper one.

Thanks for all your help
DAve

[Rudi]

With a white bed sheet, things will work as long as you're either far away enough from it to make it gray and out of focus, or you light it up to make it pure white. Some bed sheets are too thin and you will run into problems with being able to punch light right through them. But the biggest problem with bed sheets is that they just aren't large enough for any serious use (photographically-speaking, of course :D).