Cheap Backdrop Ideas?

SmileyShazza

SmileyShazza

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Sharon
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I've offered to take some pictures of my friends son in a few weeks to get some practice in childrens photography. I was thinking of getting something to use as a backdrop as I'd like to try a few different kinds of shots while I'm there - some natural in own surroundings and then some more kind of structured ones.

Does anyone have any recommendations for cheap backdrop ideas? I was thinking a piece of material one in black and one in white to use would be a good start. Any idea on what kind of material I should get and what the best size would be?

What do you use for your backdrops (if you use them).
 
If they're only young kids, a white pvc shower curtain might work, they're about £3 from wilkos... just gotta hang it up for a bit first to get the creases out 0_o
 
Asda cotton white sheets £6.00:)
 
I usually goto my local material shop.Good range of materials and colours
 
i use white and black,the black makes the baby stand out realy well,i use bed sheets from asda and lay the baby over the sofa arm or on the bed and fold the sheet over the back of headboard!
 
If you're using natural light/ambient light only, don't bother with a background. Get them next to a nice bright window with an uncluttered background behind them - with plenty of distance between them and whatever is behind them. Open your aperture nice and wide (the nifty fifty is perfect for this) and use the fastest shutterspeed you can. Ever so slightly overexpose - between 1/3rd to 2/3rd of a stop at most. You may have to use a higher ISO speed to do this, depends how much light is coming through the window.

The wide aperture will blur the background sufficently as to make it hardly noticeable, especially with a bit of creative framing, get quite close and fill the frame with their faces, however watch out for the narrower depth of field, focus on their eyes.

To help light up their faces, you could use a reflector to bounce the light from the window back up towards them.

This is more or less what I did here except my lighting was with the tungsten room lights (but this makes no difference apart fromt he white balance) but ignore the third image - that one was terribly out of focus :D
 
Thanks for the responses so far :)

I think a white sheet is definitely going to be a good starting block and I'll see if I can pick up some black material from somewhere too.

Ste - thanks for the tips. I have got a small reflector so will make sure I take that. I've got a nifty fifty and that was definitely coming with me. I've done a couple of shots before and not used a background and l've managed to get a relatively good DOF, however I know the place I'm going to is pretty cluttered plus I just thought I'd try a few different kinds of shots this time - more for me to practice and see what using different backgrounds has on the overall end result.

I was thinking of doing some shots outside if it isn't too cold as I've found the nifty fifty works really well in outdoor lighting. I love that second image on your thread :)
 
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