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Hey guys,

Bought a three light studio kit recently and want to start taking maternity photos of my pregnant fiance.. and also of the kid when he decides to show up.. Looking for a cheap solution for backdrops.. was thinking I could duck down to spotlight and buy some material.. most backdrops on sale are 6"X9" so I'm sure I could find something suitable.

Any ideas on where else would be a good place to look apart from spotlight? I'll be hanging the backdrop from a curtain rod so doesn't have to be anything fancy, I'll look into getting a proper backdrop stand at a later date.

Cheers in advance

Stephen,

That sort of solution can work well for you.

Or perhaps you use nothing: be aware of the light falloff properties from your newly acquired lighting equipment, and use that to your advantage.

If the room is deep enough, you can just allow the light to not illuminate your background areas, and thus it will be naturally dark. You'd probably want a little more than twice the distance from your light source to model as the distance from your model to your background. Then, by using a suitable aperture setting on the camera, there will be very little light hitting your background that your camera's sensor will capture.

In terms of size, I'd be looking at something that's significantly larger - 12' wide minimum, really. As your background is behind the model, and you change your angle of view to your model, different areas of the background may come into and out of your camera's view. anything much narrower than 12' may cause you issues in that the edges - and uncontrolled backgrounds beyond those edges - may come into view.

In terms of colours, I'd probably consider getting a couple of different sets of fabric to use here. White and black (one of each) is always a good starting point. Then consider a couple of pastel colours. If your lighting gear has provision for gels, use one light, with a coloured gel, on a white background.

Also consider using a very light white fabric (muslin?) over a window area as a light source. This can give you a good, large light source that you can use for the images that you're considering.

Finally, and most importantly, congratulation on the pregnancy and upcoming happy event. I wish all three of you well and much joy and happiness.

As Gary says, larger is better for backdrops. Another idea to consider is bed sheets. A little more expensive, but they iron nicely and they can do double duty on the bed.

Another idea to consider is bed sheets. A little more expensive, but they iron nicely and they can do double duty on the bed.

I went and bought some thick material and by the time it was stiched it turned
to be expensive the above may work.

I suggest you use

1. bed sheet (white) as one background
2. Black material (go for LARGE as Gary suggested)


I assume you have a few gels for your lights. [If not, these are good investments as well]
This way, you will have options of going black, gray (by allowing light falloff from a softbox etc) , white (you will need two softboxes to evenly illuminate the background depending on the size) and any other color inbetween.

Also Gary has made very useful points about bedsheet over window. Many professionals use this including Joe Mcnally who is the king of TTL flash in the nikon world.

At the end of the day, your room is better if it has tall celings and a fair bit of depth.

Congrats and all the best!

Bed sheets are ok BUT.......unless you get good quality ones light pours through them if placed against a window. trust me I know! I have used two behind (or in front!) of each other to reduce the effect, but if you buy two cheap ones you may as well buy one better quality one.

I brought my backdrops -black and white- from protog.com.au great prices, quite large and I've found them to be great quality too. Congrats on the news, very exciting!!

Thanks guys, as a temporary measure I went with the bed sheet - dark blue flanelette - until I can find something more suitable. Could have done with something larger that spilled onto the floor, was really limited by the width and length.

Anyway, here are some shots, tell me what you think: