Best material for scrims?

TimSandhu

TimSandhu

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Is there a material I should use? Anything to avoid? I'm not as worried about loss of light as I am about about colour casts.

I'm looking to make a couple of large white scrims (or even buy ready-made if I knew where to get them). Ideally, I want them to be around 6'x6'.

I do have a small-ish softbox, but I want to experiment with larger lightsources for portraiture.

Has anyone made their own? If so, what did you use as a frame?
 
california sunbounce would be a ready made solution, but they're not huge and insanely expensive.

strobist dude dave hobby uses PVC shower curtains, I haven't had a play properly but the one that I've got looks like it should be ok.

Stretch it between some pvc pipes (with easy to get connectors too, and the square frame tubing + fittings wont be more than a tenner) and it should do the trick nicely
 
PVC tubing can make a frame if you're prepared to seek out the thicker walled stuff, though unless you buy it trade it's not cheap. Photoflex manufacture "Litepanels" which are equivalent to the old system Dean Collins used to employ (The name of which is escaping me right now), they might be affordable ?
 
The original scrims were made from bleached fairly open weave white linen scrim. ( hence the name)
They let through a lot of light some of it semi directional.

Any cheap cotton polyester sheeting would work well. lawn would give a thinner more directional result.( more like a mist between the light and the sitter)
 
Scrim?
A scrim is a piece of material with holes in it (millions of them) such as a black, very fine net. I think that what you mean is a silk, which is a piece of white diffusing material.

The best option is probably a piece of ripstop nylon The stuff that the diffusers on softboxes are made from. 2nd best is a piece of plain white shower curtain.
 
Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. Plenty for me to look at now. And yes, cheers Garry I meant a silk, but the terminology escaped me.
 
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