Lastolite Illuminated backgrounds

[stringy]

Has anybody used or have any views on the Lastolite Illuminated backgrounds?

http://www.lastolite.com/hilite-backgrounds.php

I am thinking they would be useful for a portable hi-key portrait set-up but not sure if they are just gimmicky or any good?

 

[Garry Edwards]

Against:
1. The small size is probably too small to be much use
2. The larger size is still small and can be difficult to fold up and put away
3. Very expensive for what they are
4. The optional extra train is probably a bit of a waste of time simply because it isn't illuminated and so needs lighting separately - and if you have the space and skills to do that then you probably don't need the Hi-lite in the first place.

For:
1. They do exactly what they claim to do, i.e they allow a white background (nothing to do with high key BTW) to be produced with a minimum of skill and a minimum of space.
2. They can be used with any studio flash heads.
3. They have been almost universally adopted by event photographers, for whom time and space are in short supply, largely because they are so easy and quick to use.

Having said that, if you have enough space you can get exactly the same effect, on any size background you want, with a couple of flash heads and a plain background.

 

[garypm]

I used one of these for the first time last week think it was the 6x7 one with the train.Not quite as easy to light as on there website, in a ideal world you need 2 lights into the highlight not 1 then at least 1 for the train mainly where they join and then your main lights so if you have the lights and some practice you could do without paying out quite a bit for the highlight and use a plain white back drop, One other thing when you have people moving about on the train the highlight tends to move forward so really you need to tie it to a frame which of course takes up more room.