Studio Wall / Floor Color and Construction?

[greg_whitten1]

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum, if not, let me know and

I'll re-post.

 

I'm building a new house and have a 27x25 space to use as a studio.

My interest is in portrait photography. The north wall has about 16

feet of windows. Right now the floor is just plywood and the walls

will be wallboard(it's a 2nd story above gameroom, etc.). Any ideas

on whether I need to put in a real floor, and if so, what color?

What color floor, walls, ceiling (white? gray?)

 

Thanks.

 

Greg

[garry edwards]

Greg,

 

Safety issues aside, a ply floor will be fine.

 

Walls and ceiling need to be neutral, i.e. not coloured. Grey is fine because it reflects little light. White is more cheerful but in a small space it's difficult to avoid bounce. Black is perfect in that there is no bounce light at all, but very depressing. Floor colour is probably less important. Grey is probably ideal.

 

Hope this helps

[._kaa]

As Gary said, matte black is perfect from the light-control point of view, but presents serious mood/atmosphere problems. Both white and gray are fine (again -- matte, not glossy).

 

Don't forget about heavy-duty electric wiring -- a full-blown studio draws a lot of current.

[jim g.]

You can use black felt material to cover the walls and windows when you are doing your work. You should reduce, as much as possible, the amount of ambient light in the room. Backdrop stands, if wall mounted, should be attached to a stud. This also applies to a wall-mounted boom for a hairlight.

Medium gray is a good choice for floor and wall colors and still be semi-attractive looking. Carpeting is OK on the floor - again medium gray.

[peter_ehrenpreis]

My .02, Color of foor/walls can be changed with a backdrop or "seamless" (paper, cloth, etc.) what is more important is lighting, which in turn depends on how high the ceiling is, in most homes it's somewhere between 8 to 10 feet (more being better.) You need to be able to have/use lighting above the subject and not have it so low as to be visible in the photo. another rule of thumb I heard is for ideal studio size , one needs to be able to do a standing full length portrait with a 100mm lens thus about 25 feet would be right.

[greg_whitten1]

I'm lucky to have an 11 foot ceiling, but not lucky enought for 25'. How limiting do you think an 11' ceiling might be?

 

thanks for the other input on color. Matte gray will be the walls and ceiling.

 

Greg

[Sandeha Lynch]

Walls can be screened, but the ceiling is harder to screen off when you really need kill all reflected or scattered light. You might be fine with black for the ceiling if you have grey walls - and a warm ambient lighting that you can switch off when you start work. This is actually what I did in my last place and what I'll be doing again soon.

[terribletomterrific]

Hi,

 

Don't put in a new floor. Studios are rough places. You need to be able to drive a nail into

the floor, if need be: you're gonna be draggin stuff over it. If you feel you need a neutral

color, go ahead and paint it with a ten dollar bucket of paint, but don't do tiles or linoleum

or any of that. Keep it rough.

 

Tom