Background Material for portraiture

[latino]

Hey guys and gals,

I am going to go to some fabric warehouses on the weekend to pick up something as a backdrop. Probably thinking of keeping it simple with black and white material.

My question is what is the best kind of material to be used as a backdrop? I'm fairly sure that later on I will be buying proper muslin backdrops with stand but at the moment saving money is a priority.

Going to combine this with my SB600 set up on a stand with shoot through umbrella and possibly the use of white and silver reflectors to use as fill. Hoping this will be ok for the time being as I plan to work in a small space which should help.

Cheers

[JM Tran]

for me a Neutral Grey seamless paper roll for studio is the best and most versatile to work with, as you can change the white balance to change the background colour and so on - probably the most used colour even for professional fashions shoots

I have used fabric a few times and quite liked it, it was some form of soft stretchy elastic/nylon type that cannot wrinkle, looked great in photos

[ricktas]

I think the 'small space' is going to be your issue here. Backdrops work best when your subject can be placed far enough away from them that you can use an effective aperture to focus on your subject but render the backdrop blurry. If your subject is to close to the backdrop you can see the material weave and any creases in it.

Black and white material works well, so does 'stonewash' effect.