White background?

[Tomathee]

Can't believe this hasn't been asked before, but I can't find anything here and googling just brings up backgrounds to models of a different variety (no complaints here).

I took some photos for a wip thread with it on a piece of paper and saw for myself how much better it looked than the previous wood table used by default. I thought about lining a box with paper but that might not work with corners. Also on the bed, but that's not going to help with anything not top down. Plenty of folk have great backgrounds to their build photos, so what's the trick?

Thanks

[Paul J]

I use some stiff blue card/paper with a gentle curve at the base. The top end being secured with white tack or you can use drawing pins. All this is inside a booth I built for spraying but never used it for that. Makes a reasonable photo booth though. I used to use a white one but it got dirty quick.

[Black Knight]

Wot he says.

A big bit of light coloured card from an art shop. I use ivory, light grey and pale blue coloured card, depending on the colour of the model or parts to be photographed *.

Flat along the base then curve gently to go up the back wall.

Its call an infinity background

This can be put in a stout card box and holes cut in the sides and top to admit light from daylight balanced LED lights to give all round and even light.

Or build a light wood box and fit the lights inside.

You can also buy 'light tents' for a modest price off ebay.

First and last can be easily put away, brought out just for use, second is a bit more permanent.

Remember your camera sees a cone; narrow at front to wide further away so get a bit of card at least 2x the widest width of your model

* this was done on the ivory as it was lost on the light grey and didn't look right on the pale blue ~ I need to get a new sheet of card ~

[IrritableRabbit]

Hello.

Because it's part of what I do and I'm sometimes called upon to shoot small things and not full sized models, I use Colorama Colormatt product photo backgrounds which are 100 cm x 130 cm in size. Product link here

You can get perfectly good shots with other rolls of art paper, but this stuff is resistant to damage and I've been using it on and off for 9 years (only recently for models though).

Looks like this.

PhotoBanshee_021214_04 by Jonathan Macauley, on Flickr

Ye olde light set-up looked like this. It's has a few differences when I use it now and I have the boom light right over the top of the model.

Setup01 by Jonathan Macauley, on Flickr

As Black Knight says, it's an infinity curve but on a smaller scale to a photo studio for people... and cars... and other stuff.

[Tomathee]

Cheers guys, bit of card and some blutac it is for a temporary setup, easy problem to solve and cheap...

[Radleigh]

Hobbycraft sell large bits of card for £2 I believe, might be £2.50, I tend to use blue but after an accident with a drink I've not replaced it yet..

[Tomathee]

Cheers, was planning to head over there tomorrow or one lunchtime, just so happens their model section is right next to the arts and papers

[Radleigh]

They have all sorts of colours, but I just use blue. I'm sure they have white too..

[snapper_city]

I use white, blue and black. I find black is good for metallics. Also built a light box for about 4 quid. Just YouTube build a light box. Very easy and cheap.

[Raven Morpheus]

I bought a cheap professional photography backdrop off of ebay. Don't have enough room to hang it all up though (it's about 10ft long by 3ft wide) and it's got folds in it, probably needs an iron going over it, seems to be made of some sort of still fabric and isn't all that easy to roll up.

Does the job though. Although I could do better if I had room for proper lighting.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Raven Morpheus