JimKing Loc: Salisbury, Maryland USA

Without even getting into color I felt I had to paint my grey concrete floor. Concrete was just dirty, paint is easy to keep clean and I can walk on it with bare feet and not feel that dusty, dirty concrete feel.

I did choose a neutral roughly 18% grey.

OriginalCyn Loc: Connecticut

Thank you all for your comments! I know that I will be using V-Flats (Sue Bryce had an excellent homemade solution on Youtube) as well as some back drops on a wall mount. I thought I would paint my walls white, but, now I think I am going gray. Most of my upstairs is painted various shades of gray, very contemporary. My ceiling in my dining room is gray and the walls are white. So I am very familiar with gray! I didn't really think I'd be breaking out another gray for the studio:)
And, of course, I will use flat paint!

OriginalCyn Loc: Connecticut

Wow, that is a lot of information. I looked at the links, and can't quite see what you have built. Can you take a snap shot of it?

JimKing Loc: Salisbury, Maryland USA

I've never seen it recommended, but I've always been curious about using flat black walls. The only light is what I put there and the only reflections are from my reflectors. Otherwise dark and uncomfortable so maybe not a good idea but I'm wondering if it's been tried. Well, I'm sure it has, but what was the result.

OriginalCyn Loc: Connecticut

HaHa Jerry. I've googled...and found the same 11 million that you did...though UHH might be able to narrow it down just a scotch. Thanks!!

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

flat black is good and we've used it in past years. however, as you say, it can feel a bit confining. i would recommend flat gray paint matching a reference (gray) card. it will feel a little more open for you. we changed to that some years ago and were pleased with the result. no reflections but a little more "open" feeling,
hope this is of assistance to you.
p.s. you can also use flat white, given your studio set up, that will not hurt at all, either.
good luck with your setup!

JD750 Loc: SoCal

One of the studios I use has both white and black walls, seamless, and floor is the same color as the wall. And also a big silver backdrop that can be pulled down. If your subject is in out in front of a white wall the light falloff will make the wall appear gray in the frame. You need some space to make this work, so if your limited with space it might not work as well. Remember you don't want glossy paint!

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

White is always a good starting point. You'll be amazed how much light a dark wall will "swallow"!

OriginalCyn Loc: Connecticut

Is there any danger in not going with 18% gray? For example, if I found a very pale gray, just so that the wall aren't white white?

forjava Loc: Half Moon Bay, CA

Building the ideal room
There is a lot of value in the earlier posts and I am about to re-read them after commenting here. I did not see much about my theme, which is bringing on-demand changes to the studio – dynamism.

Russ Halford, “Bounce Lighting,” 1958 defines the ideal room, p. 19. A couple of his points: (a) prefer smooth white walls to reflect a lot of light; (b) 12’x15’ – not too big due to light-intensity falloff; (c) start with basic (default) and try deviations.

Building on Halford, here are my three low-cost home-studio recipes that do not permanently change the room itself. These recipes allow for a dynamic color scheme while avoiding paint. Color seems to be top-of-mind for numerous respondents.

Flooring that protects equipment:
I laid down black rubber-like squares (2 square feet each) that interlock. A ten-minute task.
This is in case I drop equipment. In principle, I would not choose black, but I can dynamically cover it with a 6’ roll of paper, as needed. Have used it happily for a couple of months. No issues with my heavily-laden tripod. Try Costco for the stuff I use.

Swappable walls that address color casts:
There are 4x8' foam-insulation panels (R-Tech Insulfoam) at Home Depot. Each panel weighs a few ounces. With these panels, you can erect walls and a ceiling. Though the (horizontal) ceiling panels hold the (vertical) wall panels in place, I suppress light leaks by pinning the panels together with straight pins pushed in at an angle or I push in small nails. This arrangement has left room has a separate workshop, for my wife and a four-foot high chamber (Thanks, R-Tech) on a table top for seated post processing under defined lighting.
Back to the shooting studio, you can cover each panel with white or gray or black or other-toned paper on wide rolls or just go with the silver. I have Savage (Chandler, AZ, via Samy’s) 57-1253 gray tint and 9-1253 Stone Gray).
Now, for an example of the critical need for swapping out the color scheme. I'm photographing 19-th C Boston coin silver today and I know that white-wall reflections are far more obtrusive than reflections from silver walls. You can have extra panels and swap colors, according to your subject. When I shoot diamond jewelry, I don’t want the stones to pick up blacks, so if I’ve painted my walls black, I’m hosed. So just swap out your walls and ceiling, a one-minute task.
There are 2x4’ panels, as well, suitable for use as reflectors with gold foil and other tones. Taking it a little further, you might lower the ceiling dynamically with a 2x4’ panel from 8’ to get a stronger bounce.

Working lights that support focusing:
So you have a safe, enclosed space for controlled lighting. However, there is need for ambient lighting between shots and while focusing. The modeling light on strobe lights helps construct shadows, mid-tones, and highlights when posing a subject and when dialing in an exposure. Modeling lights go off automatically just before the strobes light up. It may help focusing to have strong dedicated light over a subject if you are on a tripod. When ready to shoot, these work lights for focusing need to be turned off. I do this with a remote switch at the tripod. The simplest switch is the Defiant 3-Pack Indoor Wireless Remote Control. You did not ask about this but it is huge. I have a smart-phone Wi-Fi switch as well but simple trumps complex dependencies, big time, at far less cost.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

The studio I planned and have used for years was pretty simple. The walls were painted Zone V gray. I used PVC pipe to make frames from which to hang various colored material. The frame was close to floor to ceiling height and shower curtain hooks held the material in place. I could change the color of the cloth drops to tailor lighting to my desire. Also the backdrops were handled the same manner.

All in all it was pretty inexpensive to purchase yards of cloth as needed. The PVC pipe and fittings were also inexpensive and easily modified to fit any needs I had. The flooring was interlocking rubber padding. I could lay paper or cloth over areas for shooting.
--Bob

Abo

flat white and flat black.

wj cody Loc: springfield illinois

that should be fine - as long as you re using backdrops and some reflectors. also, be sure to paint the floor the same colour.