Can I do all of this with white seamless backdrop?

[Ett]

Hi there guys,

I want to buy myself some white seamless paper for a backdrop, and I'm trying to figure out what would be best to buy. There's a shoot that I want to do, and I want the background to be grey in this shoot. If I simply don't give a WHITE background enough light, it'll be grey in the shot, right?

Buying grey would obviously be ideal, but if I can "make" grey with a roll of white paper, I obviously want to do that. I honestly don't really want to do much shooting on white, but it might be worth it for me in the long run to buy white.

Or should I just go ahead and buy the grey paper?

[zona5101]

yes, by not putting light on the background you will make it grey. It is a function of how far away you put the subject from the background and how brightly you light the subject. Basically a practical application of the inverse square law...

[oldwolf]

Originally Posted by zona5101

yes, by not putting light on the background you will make it grey. It is a function of how far away you put the subject from the background and how brightly you light the subject. Basically a practical application of the inverse square law...

+1 to this.

You basically have to look at it this way. What color is a white backdrop in a dark room with no lights? Your eye sees it as black because there is no light on it. Restrict the amount of light hitting the backdrop and you can get all types of shades of grey.

[Ett]

Awesome, that's exactly what I was thinking Thanks guys!

[Ett]

I think I'm still going to buy the grey, though. Or is there's something about white that's amazing that I'm missing?

[zona5101]

Originally Posted by Ett

I think I'm still going to buy the grey, though. Or is there's something about white that's amazing that I'm missing?

white is easily colored by gels on your background light & of course much easier to "blow out" for high key or pure white backgrounds...

but gray is nice! especially for formal headshots. Maybe buy both.

[Doug Sundseth]

Your other concern with taking white to gray is that it requires some space to work in. Depending on lens and how much space you have to work in, you might not have enough space to keep your subject far enough from the background to easily take the background exposure down.

If that happens, be prepared to restrict the spread of your lights with snoots, flags, barndoors, grids, whatever.