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Well I finally bought some non woven black canvas today for the backdrop stand I ordered on ebay a few months ago. I got the material from Dragon Image and got it home (just fitted) in the car. I got 3m width x 7m length. This is a LOT but handy if you need the extra, for e.g full body shots, larger group portraits etc.

Initial observations:

1. Quite difficult to handle/assemble on your own, in fact I'd say near impossible.

2. Easily picks up dust/fluff BUT is equally easy to brush off with your hand or a light brush.

3. Affordable - this cost $16.50 per metre and we got seven metres - so that was $115.50.

4. With two people - very easy to roll up and put elastic bands around to store.

5. Creases reasonably easy, however the creases hang out after not long of it being suspended.

6. On the 3m length on the backdrop stand you can't fit the physical length of 3m on this stand - you must extend it to 4m. This isn't really a big issue, because if you had to cut it down to <3m then that could be easy. The reason for this is because with the vertical poles sticking into the horizontal cross bar, you actually lose some length.

7. A few initial test shots (with SB800) and lightsphere PJ produced some moire - however with some studio lights and more careful lighting consideration +/- some PP I think this shouldn't be an issue.

8. If it gets excessively dirty, I was told by Angelo in the shop that it could in fact be hosed down as it's 100% synthetic. I know they call it 'canvas' but cleary it's a synthetic canvas.

9. We also bought some black grips that hold the material in place across the horizontal bar - these were $11 each (typical photographic type price) but I haggled and got them for $10/each. Very handy/useful and they are padded with a strong rubber so they don't tear/damage the material.

I will post some very initial shots shortly - feel free to discuss and/or ask questions that I hopefully may be able to answer.

I'm a little dissapointed that one person can't set this up - perhaps I'm slightly retarded and with some practice I could, but I can't see this happening in the near future

How heavy is the whole thing? I'd love to buy one of this, but I need a car first...

Some really interesting observations there Geoff. Thanks.
You may be a bit hard on yourself with the retarded comment - that gear always looks tricky to set up with only one set of hands. You need an attractive photographic assistant (sorry I'm so far away...)

Yi-P wrote:How heavy is the whole thing? I'd love to buy one of this, but I need a car first...

Yip u would definitely need a car for this setup.

The backdrop stand folds away to a bag a bit bigger than your average tripod case and weighs approx 5kg - 10kg's, the material is bulky in a long (3m) roll and would way no more than 2kg's.

HTH

after using it on sat i am getting mine now, excellent value for money if you ask me, for just under 1k i will have 4 lights, 4 stands 4 umbrellas, two backdrops (white and black), the backdrop stand and hopefully 2 lightboxes too.

Having used the backdrop in this thread, I can confirm pretty much everything that Geoff has said, however, you can put the backdrop up by yourself (it ain't easy, but it isn't too hard - just technique).

I presume the problem others had was the weight? Well, what I did was run the cross bar through the inside of the rolled up backdrop, run the backdrop out a fair bit to reduce weight on the crossbar, put the clamps on, lift the cross bar/backdrop onto each stand one-at-a-time (stands in their lowest position), and then raised the stands to the height I needed. Wasn't too hard in the end.

The width of the backdrop is great for single person to very small group shots, although this will depend on how far from the vertical you have the subjects positioned (the further out - to avoid shadows - the wider the backdrop needs to be to avoid shooting edges).