Can I add another question this as I have been thinking about of of these but aint convinced its the perfect solution to white backgrounds in small spaces as billed.
How hard/easy is it to blow out the train to get that seamless venture look?
If you want a clean white floor as well as the background, that is always double-difficult. I don't think it's any harder with a Hilite, but IMHO it is still better to help clean up the floor just a little in post processing. The only alternative is to over expose things just too much for my liking so if a
small amount of PP is an option, I would take advantage of that. Diddy Dave, the Grand Master Flash of this technique around here, calls it 'grey mopping'.
The problem is that, while you can light the background separately and over expose it, you can't do that to the foreground without over exposing the subject at the same time. There's no way around that unless you have a raised floor and can underlight it, as you would do with a still life light table.
I'm seriously thinking about getting a Hilite myself, just to gain some working room when shooting in peoples' homes. When there's enough room, getting a blown background isn't too hard conventionally, but in practise I often haven't got enough space and it all goes wrong. Without some distance I can't get the light even, and background lights start spilling on to the subject.
I think that using a Hilite will effectively compress the amount of working area I need by about 25%, and when just two feet is the difference between success and a nightmare, it's got to be worth it.
