Blue tint from vinyl background

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Anyone recommend a vinyl background that is really white? we have one currently that is reflecting a blue tint, not 100% sure what the brand is, it was a couple of hundred quid. ta
 
Are you sure that there's a colour from the actual background?
Other possibilities could include:
1. Wrong colour balance
2. Blue walls, carpets or furniture in the room
3. Using LED lights instead of flash
4. Using poor quality IGBT flashes at low power settings.
 
Model and clothing are perfect, back of grey card target (which is white) is perfectly white, nothing in the studio is casing a blue tine. Will go for a Lastolite 2.7x 6m see how it goes.
 
Have you got a UV filter on the camera? Some materials can reflect back the UV from some flashguns? The other possibility is the material has a faint trace of blue in it to make it look whiter... yes daft I know but it does happen.
How does the grey card look?
 
Thanks, 100% coming from the vinyl background, grey card is fine, reversing to gives the white as fine, understand the reflection theory. vinyl is a pain, but when you are shooting hundreds of items it has to be something you can clean every half hour, the alternative is to switch to paper, but that's not great and would mean a huge amount of paper wasted.
 
Well, as Sherlock Holmes famously said, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. " but it still doesn't sound like the background to me. I don't claim to be an expert on the subject and I often get things wrong anyway, but white vinyl (and most other materials tend to go yellow over time, not blue, although I suppose there is a faint possibility that the manufacturers have added blue to mitigate the inevitable future yellowing - in which case the problem will of course resolve itself over time.

Personally I always prefer to shoot against a grey background and then cut out in PP, which takes hardly any time and produces much better results, but we all have our own way of doing things.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Well, as Sherlock Holmes famously said, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. " but it still doesn't sound like the background to me. I don't claim to be an expert on the subject and I often get things wrong anyway, but white vinyl (and most other materials tend to go yellow over time, not blue, although I suppose there is a faint possibility that the manufacturers have added blue to mitigate the inevitable future yellowing - in which case the problem will of course resolve itself over time.

Personally I always prefer to shoot against a grey background and then cut out in PP, which takes hardly any time and produces much better results, but we all have our own way of doing things.
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Thanks, we need to shoot as close to white as possible, the post needs to be quick, some 4500 images to process all with hair etc we do a lot of post as it is, anything to make it a bit quicker would be beneficial. if the white card is white, and the clothing is right, it has to be a bit of an iffy background. will order a Lastolite Monday see if that's any better :)
 
swanseamale47 said:
What about upping the light on the background to "blow it out"?
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Unfortunately it's not that simple.

The perfect background shade is mid grey, allowing the products to be cut out in PP, but the OP has explained that he can't do that because of the volume involved, fair enough, so he has to produce them with a white background in camera. The trick correct technique is then to use the minimum possible level of over exposure, typically about 0.7 of a stop, because every increase to the absolute minimum necessary reduces the lighting control on the products and can also cause lens flare, reduced contrast and damage to edge definition, especially with fine detail such as hair.

Because of this, his decision to simply buy another background, which in the scheme of things will cost very little, is the obvious choice, despite my own misgivings that the problem may have another cause.
 
swanseamale47 said:
Have you got a UV filter on the camera? Some materials can reflect back the UV from some flashguns? The other possibility is the material has a faint trace of blue in it to make it look whiter... yes daft I know but it does happen.
How does the grey card look?
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Thank you for that little insight Wayne, I always thought it was a Nikon thing, I nearly ALWAYS have to drop the Cyan/Blue when there is white or black involved and yes, I have a UV filter on the front.
I'm doing a location shoot today and the model might be wearing a black leather jacket, I will remove the filter and see if that's part of my problem.
 
metroman said:
Thank you for that little insight Wayne, I always thought it was a Nikon thing, I nearly ALWAYS have to drop the Cyan/Blue when there is white or black involved and yes, I have a UV filter on the front.
I'm doing a location shoot today and the model might be wearing a black leather jacket, I will remove the filter and see if that's part of my problem.
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The UV filter should help not make it worse, but it wont harm to try it with and without, theres filters and filters ;). My guess is some blue in the white background to make it whiter. Normally most people probably wouldn't notice, but if your doing colour critical work and checking it'll show up.
 
I think Gary is about right. I use a local professional studio and the professional often uses white paper or even grey. By increasing the light on the paper, it is easy to achieve burn out or by reducing the light have it black. You do need a studio for this so you can have enough space between your subject and the background. If you are using a digital camera it will include a UV filter above the sensor. I once made the mistake of leaving filters on a camera for studio shots and could not initially understand why my shots were much lower contrast than others. Fortunately, I realised what was wrong and removed the filters. The worst situation in which to use filters in front of the lens is in a studio as you typically have lights in front of the camera; the flare effect reduces contrast.

Dave
 
Dave Canon said:
I think Gary is about right. I use a local professional studio and the professional often uses white paper or even grey. By increasing the light on the paper, it is easy to achieve burn out or by reducing the light have it black. You do need a studio for this so you can have enough space between your subject and the background. If you are using a digital camera it will include a UV filter above the sensor. I once made the mistake of leaving filters on a camera for studio shots and could not initially understand why my shots were much lower contrast than others. Fortunately, I realised what was wrong and removed the filters. The worst situation in which to use filters in front of the lens is in a studio as you typically have lights in front of the camera; the flare effect reduces contrast.

Dave
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Correct. There's no point that I can see in using filters in the studio - in fact filters generally, with the exception of polarisers and neutral density, are or should be a thing of the past when shooting on digital - and using any filter in the studio is always very likely to cause lens flare. UV filters in particular can either cause or at least aggravate the problem that the OP is experiencing.
 
I've only just realised that the OP is in fact Kieranstandishphoto, who used to post on here telling us how good LED lighting is, which begs the question, was LED lighting used here?

I ask because, as I pointed out in my first reply, LED lighting can easily create the problem that he has reported.
 
I've seen three lens saved by having a filter on the front (outdoors) one a 400mm 2.8, I'd have hated having to have the front element replaced on that, in each case the filter either broke or was badly scratched, but the lens was fine. Two of those lens were mine....
 
swanseamale47 said:
I've seen three lens saved by having a filter on the front (outdoors) one a 400mm 2.8, I'd have hated having to have the front element replaced on that, in each case the filter either broke or was badly scratched, but the lens was fine. Two of those lens were mine....
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I fully accept that a filter can save a lens from serious damage, but in these situations its value is the protection it provides, not the filtering function.

In the studio, the risk of damage either doesn't exist or is minimal, any filter will inevitably reduce image quality to some extent, serves no useful function and provides a large flat surface that is very prone to flare, so shouldn't be used.
 
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swanseamale47 said:
I've seen three lens saved by having a filter on the front (outdoors) one a 400mm 2.8, I'd have hated having to have the front element replaced on that, in each case the filter either broke or was badly scratched, but the lens was fine. Two of those lens were mine....
Click to expand...

Of course you must take your own decisions but I have proved how filters deteriorate images in many situations; there is much evidence on the internet anyway. As for protection, in 40 years I have never damaged the front element of any lens (or filter which I used to use pre-digital). I do take sensible precautions in that I leave the lens cap on when not actually photographing and always leave a lens hood on. The risk of damage for me is very low but I am insured anyway. I do carry a plain glass protective filter in my bag for use in conditions where there may be high risk (blown sand, chemicals etc.) but this has not occurred in the last 5 years or so. I do know one photographer who regularly drops or destroys cameras and lenses but even a filter will not help him much.

Dave
 
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