Need help deciding on whether or not to keep this studio setup..

This past weekend I shot my niece's 13th bday party.. It was my first time with a studio setup. I enjoyed it, learned a lot as I went, but it was a lot of coordination before the event to make sure I had the right equipment.. Thank the lord for BH Photo.. In the end, the pictures came out great and it was fun.. I certainly could use more experience with it, but that's expected.

Now that it's over though, I'm deciding whether or not I will use this / how realistic it is to use it if I decided to promote it.

The biggest issue I had was the seamless paper. That tube is a son of B. I have two sedans.. I guess I could have put my rear seat down to get the tube to fit in there but instead did it the Polish way (I can say this, I'm half) and had the tube sticking from my passenger seat out my rear window Oh and lesson learned on having A clamps to keep the paper from unraveling!!!!

My question is.. Is there a market for this? The space required is pretty big as I'm sure anyone who has done this before knows.. My concern is if I keep it, I can't really set it up where I live and I am not in the position to rent a studio for this.. I have a full time job in an unrelated field and this is just a hobby. If someone wanted me to come to them to do this, the problem is space.. It's about a 15x15 foot minimum once you account for the background support and the 4 flashes (2 background and 2 for subject).

My question boils down to is it worth keeping this stuff? I was able to get a nice promotion by doing this because a lot of my niece's friends were from camp/school and the parents were impressed with the setup and results.. I'm just wondering if the juice is worth the squeeze with this

And thanks to those who helped when I was asking about this a few weeks ago, it did help.

If this is your hobby, and this is what you want to do, then it seems not really optional. Seamless paper is really not the most portable however. Cloth would seem better that way, muslin, held at top with three A clamps. Also cloth on a telescoping cross pole for the background will fit into cramped spaces much more easily, can be any width.

WayneF said:

Also cloth on a telescoping cross pole for the background will fit into cramped spaces much more easily, can be any width.

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Wayne, thanks for the response.. Now I've read with Muslin the problem becomes wrinkles, right? Is this really just solved with clamps and pulling it tight? The seamless paper really was a nice backdrop but yeah, what a pain to set up and then once it unraveled I wanted to kill myself! This is my fault though for not having clamps..

AudiSportB5S4 said:

Wayne, thanks for the response.. Now I've read with Muslin the problem becomes wrinkles, right? Is this really just solved with clamps and pulling it tight? The seamless paper really was a nice backdrop but yeah, what a pain to set up and then once it unraveled I wanted to kill myself! This is my fault though for not having clamps..

Click to expand...

Yes, muslin does wrinkle, and it shows in the photos. The best way is use a fabric steamer to remove the wrinkles. Inexpensive at Walmart.

If enough room, the muslin can be well back farther, wrinkles out of focus. Another way is to simply wad it up into a ball and store it in a bag. This makes many small random wrinkles, instead of the deep straight wrinkles from folding. Steamer is the best.