White vinyl for product photography

[Mutt]

Do you think white sticky-backed plastic and/or self-adhesive white vinyl used for sign making would work well as a seamless backdrop for photographing products? The paper protecting the sticky side would obviously be left on and perhaps taped in to place to stop it peeling over time. My only concern is that when you receive the roll the vinyl would be on the outside and when unrolled the arc or "sweep" of the vinyl would be the opposite of what's required.

So I'm wondering, would reverse rolling the vinyl introduce creases?

The reason I want to use vinyl rather than paper is because the vinyl can be used over and over. Just wipe clean and it's as good as new. I also like the way shadows look on vinyl (as opposed to paper).

If anyone has tried these materials I'd be interested to know how you got on. If nobody has tried it before I'll probably just order an A4 sheet of the stuff from the auction site and see how I fair.

 

[Mutt]

You mentioned you prefer the shadows when using vinyl, I would have thought it would cause more reflections or glare. I'll have to compare that someday.

The best idea would be to have a roll of gloss vinyl and a roll of matte. The gloss would only be used if you wanted a clearly defined reflection. The matte would be used for the majority of the products photographed.

With careful placement of the lights avoiding glare from the gloss vinyl should be pretty easy.

I would suggest picking up a smaller sample of the vinyl and rolling/twisting it around to see how it reacts. Roll it around a small cylinder and hold with a rubber band for a few days, then roll it the other way and see if it conforms. Depending on what kind of vinyl you get, that is the only way to be sure.

Thanks mate. I'll give that a go when I get some.