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Question: What do I need to know when it comes to backgrounds!?
as far as muslin goes!. Things like the best colors, the best sizes, What to look for in stands etc!.!.!. !.Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
You can spend the national debt on backgrounds if you are not careful!. There is a never ending assortment, as you have probably seen!.

I have found it best to stick with 3 basic colors!. A mottled grey looks very upscale and goes with just about anyone!. A solid black can be fantastic with some subjects, such as blondes or redheads!. Then, a white, (or cream colored) background can come in handy with dark skinned people or those with very dark hair!. But if you light the background properly, you can use the grey for everything and maintain separation between background and subject!.

As for sizes, I like 'em LARGE!. This gives you the ability to get in more than one person and / or do a full body shot with the background extending onto the floor!. My grey and black backgrounds are 12 feet wide by 20 feet long!.

Many background kits come with stands!. However, some of them are pretty flimsy!. You DO NOT want a single stand with a cross bar at the top from which the background hangs!. This is very unstable!. You need TWO heavy duty stands with a sturdy bar that securely mounts into the top of the stand columns!. The top bar usually consists of two to four pieces so you can vary the width of the background as needed or as space allows!.

steveWww@QuestionHome@Com

Smaller sizes are good for portraits only!. A 9x10' piece of muslin may have a photograph of a much larger piece so don't go by the photograph alone!.

If you are hanging the muslin from a 7' high stand, and you want to take a full length picture and leave 4-5 feet behind the person to hide the shadows - well you can see that you are pretty quickly talking about at least 9x15 or so (10x20 is the common size)!.

I find that black makes the gels stand out much more than white!. Medium gray is next best!.

Watch for quality!. You will see similar ads but for very different prices!. Muslin comes in different (and I'm using the wrong words here) densities - more threads per inch!. You can get by with a lessor quality sometimes, but not if you set your background in front of a sunny window, or are using strong lights on the background!.

Seemless paper also works, it doesn't hurt to have some of that laying around, too!.


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best colour!? i prefer white BG's and using a gelled light ot produce a colour, i also have a black BG and a grey one

best size!? the bigger the better, how much space you got!?

stands, anything that will hold it in place, i use auto poles, and light stands

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