Background question...

[jblackwell]

I am looking into buying some muslin backgrounds for photo shoots...my question is...what is the best size?

I was looking at some on e-bay and the ones that come with the package are 5'x10'...looks a little short to me. The first shoot I will be using them for will be glamour-shot type photos so it's basically on a stool, waist up...seems like it would be good for that...but wouldn't be good for say...a baby shoot and floor shots!?!?

Any suggestions?!

[Murtasma]

Well you figure you want the backdrop pretty high on the celling. I don't know exactly how tall your celling is but probably about 8 feet give or take. So you figure you need about 7 - 8 feet to cover the wall and another 7-8 feet at least to go out from the wall to create a nice seamless background. How much area do you have to work with? I think a 5x10 is probably a little too small. For head a shoulders it would be fine but if you want to do body shots or people on the floor you can probably get away with it if you move the screen down from the celling when taking pictures of babies.

5 feet wide I feel however is not wide enough. If you want to take pictures at an angle you will find out the background will not be wide enough. I have a paper backdrop that's 10 feet wide and that works well but it's really huge and just too large for my small work area, 8 feet wide would be a good compromise.

[archersdad]

I prefer to use 10' x 20'