Black background fabric

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laulon

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Hello,

Whats the best black material to use as background material?

Hope someone can help.x
 
That's a rather open question!

What are you wanting to use it for? How big? how transportable? budget? What kind of lighting are you going to use?

There are many different options, and for black background "low key" portraits, you don't necessarily need black depending on how your shooting...
 
Along the lines of Gareth's comment.. the best black background is good control of the lighting. Beyond that it depends on the subject, e.g. portraits or tabletop.
 
If you need it REALLY black then black velvet absorbs pretty much as many photons as you can throw at it! It's much less reflective than black paper or vinyl and you can use it much closer to the light source.
 
those things are generally mutually exclusive :bang: as those would be the holy grail...

How are you lighting it? Are you wanting to keep the texture of the background in, or are you wanting to low key so totally black'd out background?

The reason I ask, its it if fairly easy to light low key portraits with lighting from each side, making sure there is no light spill onto the back ground... in this situation, its the distance from the subject from the background which is also critical. You could with a grey/black background sheet making sure the distance and light spill is appropriate. You could do this for well under £100 with a 2M / 3M sheet and background frame holder...

If you want a higher quality background that needs to soak in alot of light as you'll be lighting subject from the front, then I think Lastolite do a few pop-up backgrounds of different material including a velvet-like material.
 
maybe worth posting an example of what kind of portrait pictures you're wanting to produce?!?
 
search


This is the kind if thing I'm trying to achieve.
 
laulon said:
http://www.google.co.uk/m/search?si...afari&q=black background photography&sa=N#i=1

This is the sort of thing I'm trying to achieve.
Click to expand...

At least one of those is using a smoky grey/charcoal background rather than blcak (you can see it), at least one isn't using a background at all. Some are using a backdrop background and several are using table-top infinity set-ups. Are your intentions really as vague as a google for "black background"?

How you achieve a black background depends very much on the subject and the type of shot.

What are you feeding the zebra?
 
Are you needing it to be portable? I'm aware of, and have owned (but since sold) a very good collapsible background in a black velvet style material - it was very very good, but around £250 to buy... What's your budget?
 
I think it's time for you to experiment! If you don't know what you actually want (as it seems you want everything and think it's the same!) you can start off with a single light, a softening modifier like shoot softbox, and have a play! You can achieve a portrait, being lit from one side like this... Just close the sorties enough for the ambient light doesn't register when you take an unlit shot (get a black picture) then light up one side with a strobe... Make sure you stay away from Walls and mask the light from the background. That's as cheap as it gets!

If you want a set of backgrounds then £100-200 to start would be a good budget... You need to research muslin, paper, vinyl etc... It's your choice to make...
 
I have some black cotton sheeting which is a cheap way to experiment. And there's the light drop off - the farther away the subject from the backdrop the greater the reduction in light (twice the distance, half the light) which helps keep the black black.
 
little to no background thought needed for that shot!

At a budget, and room to move away from anything behind, it would be relatively easy... if you wanted to put something up, then any matt-black material will do!

2 second youtube search shows what I mean

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91gU93J2Q8k&feature=related:thumbs:
 
even better!

loving the car dashboard reflector!!!

hope this all helps!
 
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