First background colour to get - best choice?

[dubcat]

Hi -

I am thinking of buying a background stand and a big bit of muslin to hang from it. What colour would you say to go for first?

Initially I wanted white as I like the look. However, it seems white is very hard to get right - i will have one speedlight to light my background at first by the way.

Then I thought maybe black - but it seems quite limited with regards to what you can do with it.

Finally I settled on grey - it seems with grey you can turn the backdrop in to many colours simply by putting a gel on the flash lighting the backdrop. Is that right? Would you say grey is best/most flexible to start with?

Is white easier than i seem to think it is or have i got it right about white?

Thanks in advance.
Dub

 

[karfeef]

black will give a deeper colour than grey, using gels - grey does have the advantage of being able to take it to black (e.g. using subject distance/light control) and blowing out to white (if you have the required lights/power - a single speedlight in this instance would be near impossible to turn it white)

 

[Farno]

I went for black.
Just ordered it tonight

 

[EOS_JD]

Good choice because with a limited number of flash guns it's hard to create an even white. Black allows you more options to use light and shadow to create atmospheric images and is a nice choice.