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Finally got around to purchasing a seamless backdrop. Now I need to learn how to best light the BG to work with my subjects.


Jewel


Yassmin


Yassmin again

Her boot soles need a coat of paint I know...


Here's a photo of the setup. Gotta love that low noise iPhone sensor.

Kevin - Congratulations. I am sure that you will get your head around the background lighting. Most probably will involve more $$$$...as always.

Looks cool,

but why a purple background?
A rather striking and bold colour to choose.

Love the color especially against the vivid orange , cant wait to see more of the burlesque models against it
DebT

Judging from these, it looks like it will work very well for you.
I imaging getting just the right amount of light on the "fold" will be tricky.

Daniel

Kev, there will be no stopping you now. These make it so much easier. As for the fold, when I was using mine I placed some weights on the font corners to smooth out the paper and it worked a treat as they were never in the shots. Looking forward to seeing some more.

I am sure you know this already but, if you move the background further from the subject, you will have more control over the lighting on the background.

Also for white seamless with minimal fuss see this article.

http://www.zarias.com/white-seamless-tutorial-part-1-gear-space/

natskis wrote:Looks cool,

but why a purple background?
A rather striking and bold colour to choose.

I had help in this decision, along the lines of "you can buy this gear as long as you get purple, coz I like it". I think it goes well for dancers.

Going to try gelling flashes on the grey, see how that works out. Think I might get a nice pastel look.

Thanks for that link surenj, very useful info. I need to get a white as soon as I can. I have a white muslin that I'm going to put on one of the spare rolls, but I'm over photoshopping wrinkles.

Big V wrote: I placed some weights on the font corners to smooth out the paper and it worked a treat as they were never in the shots.

That's one way to do it.

Another trick is to reverse the paper setup: Put the roll on the floor, and pull it up onto your stands, holding it in place with strong clips. This means that the problems of the edge on the floor never ... comes up. It also puts less strain and weight on your stands, which will be somewhat top heavy when used in the manner that you have them here.

Don't forget that the paper is two sided; what colour is the back?

I like the way the purple contrasts with the orange; it works very well in this instance. Get some white and some black as well. The white can assume any colour you wish, with suitable gels and some extra lights.

And as Suren suggested, increasing the distance between the background and your subject affords you even greater control, as you can utilise light falloff to help with isolating your subjects and backgrounds.

gstark wrote:

Big V wrote: I placed some weights on the font corners to smooth out the paper and it worked a treat as they were never in the shots.

That's one way to do it.

Another trick is to reverse the paper setup: Put the roll on the floor, and pull it up onto your stands, holding it in place with strong clips. This means that the problems of the edge on the floor never ... comes up. It also puts less strain and weight on your stands, which will be somewhat top heavy when used in the manner that you have them here.

Don't forget that the paper is two sided; what colour is the back?

I like the way the purple contrasts with the orange; it works very well in this instance. Get some white and some black as well. The white can assume any colour you wish, with suitable gels and some extra lights.

And as Suren suggested, increasing the distance between the background and your subject affords you even greater control, as you can utilise light falloff to help with isolating your subjects and backgrounds.

The system I have is fixed to the wall, so I can't pull it up from the floor. I did find that having the paper hang down behind the roll makes it way easier to roll out without creasing, but harder to keep the edges down. The paper I have is the same both sides.

With gels, I've found that black is the best, as you get a deep saturated colour that you cannot get with white. Depends what you are after I guess.

[quote="darklightphotography"t way easier to roll out without creasing, but harder to keep the edges down.[/quote]

Gaffer tape to the rescue.

Gary, had not thought of reversing the roll - great sugestion

darklightphotography wrote:With gels, I've found that black is the best, as you get a deep saturated colour that you cannot get with white. Depends what you are after I guess.

This may not be entirely true as you can underexpose the background (gelled) on white by 1.5 stops or so to get a deep saturation. This assumes that you have independent control of the background lighting.