GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

Slowly but surely I'm planning to paint a small space at home that I can call a studio. A solid gray is what seems to be the best color to use. My only hassle is that I'd like to use an 18% Gray but nothing is called that and nobody in the stores has any idea what would be exactly equal to 18% Gray. After requesting what really is 18% Gray for nearly a year, only Home Depot, (Behr Paints), has ever followed up on it or at least close. I was really surprised they had too!

The sample paint chip cards were hand written as "True Grays" but not 18% gray. All four of the paint chips.

Behr Paint (from Home Depot)
1 - Silver City MQ2-59u
2 - Seagull Gray N360-1u
3 - Silver Marlin N360-2u
4 - Titanium PPU24-16u

The Silver City and Titanium sort of looks close to each other and close to one of the gray cards I have although at last count I have three gray cards and borrowed a Color Checker to boot and all of them are not visibly the same, close but different. I really hoped a paint company would truly know what 18% gray was although even these paint chips are a bit different.

Checking with my cameras, everything seems close but not the same. To make matters worse, I'm pretty sure every manufacture has it's own 18% gray.

Does anyone truly know what 18% gray is or at least accepted as 18% gray? Because so many are close, does it really matter?

*(My sailboat has a 50% gray deck, (helps prevent sun blinding), and that is relative easy to figure out by mixing equal amounts of pure black and pure white. I guess I could mix 18 drops of bluck with 82 drops white to get it but that seems like too much work.)

BebuLamar

Take a gray card to the paint store. They have the machine that can measure it and mix the paint to match.

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

Guessing - repeat, just guessing - Home Depot’s “Seagull Grey” might be fairly close.
But follow BebuLamar’s suggestion to get the color exact.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

In all the professional photographic studios I have been in, I have never seen one painted in something like 18% grey. What is the purpose? To have a color neutral surface or just for the cool factor?

Bill_de Loc: US

The same answer was given 15 years ago. It must be right.

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/19-dedicated-theater-design-construction/201225-kodak-18-gray-there-shade-behr-paint-i-close.html

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BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

and here is their formula:

Here's the Kodak 18% Grey formula for HD Behr Premium Plus Interior Flat Latex (1 Gallon). I got this from another forum member who had the Kodak color card (almost) perfectly matched at his Home Depot.

Accent Base (1600)
4 columns on label:
------------------------------------------
COLORANT OZ 48 96
------------------------------------------
D Thalo Green 0 36 0
E Thalo Blue 3 14 0
F Red Oxide 1 11 0

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

Interesting.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

Cool factor??? "My walls are grayer than your walls!" LoL

Actually I don't have or even need a studio as I rarely take photos in my house. Also as you probably already know, playing around with a strobe/flash and maybe gels, any color can be made with white being the easiest to modify.

This is something of interest that I can experiment with on my own time.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

Interesting. I should looking to it.

Haydon

I remember a video where Zack Arias mentioned that if he had a choice, he would have everything painted in black to absolutely minimize any light bounce in a studio.

frankie c Loc: Lake Havasu CIty, AZ

I don't think I would vie for gray.. (any gray). I worked for Eastman Kodak for 38 years not that this has anything to do with the color of your studio :( Anyways since I worked at the film factory I had use of studio's as a member of Kodak's camera club (which I did often). They were all and always painted black. In a studio you want to control all the light so if the walls are any color that would reflect light and or a color cast which would effect your exposure was not something you need as variable. So I prolly favor Black... (maybe) I would also consider white or at least maybe one white wall or maybe a white ceiling I could use to bounce or reflect light. Remember white paints are also (like gray) not created equal. However, I would feel better about selecting a pure white over working off an 18% gray. finding a pure gray would prolly not be easy and you would most likely reflect some unwanted blue or even green that would effect your color balance. ANYWAYS Just Sayin :) good luck.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Dude must not have a Cat. There would be Cat hair all over everything, not to mention dust.

Haydon

He's not photographing cats in the studio but I'm sure he's imaged a few good looking kittens in his day :)

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

This is what you want:

http://www.rpimaging.com/store/manufacturers/gti/munsell-neutral-gray-paint.html

But it isn't cheap.