What problems can you face while buying reflective fabric? The absolutely white background is my «life hack», I share it with you in the video below. The main idea is in using reflective fabrice as a background for photo and video shooting.
Surely after watching my video, you would like to find out:
- What is the price of this background?
- Is it possible to buy it in your city?
- What are the conditions?
In terms of price: each running meter with a width of 140 cm costs about 11 dollars. Let’s be honest, this is a very low price, if you will count how much effort you can save further, getting a high-quality result. But what can go wrong? Read on.
Poor analogue
Reflective fabric can only be ordered from China, but no one want to wait long. So there is a desire to look for analogues. And I have already done it for you, found and ordered fabric for the projector screen. It is sold from the warehouse in my city (St. Petersburg) and the delivery will be carried out in a couple of days.
I was happy, but when I looked at it, a certain disappointment came. The fabric contains far fewer reflective particles and does not work as well as the reflective material that I previously ordered from China to test my hypothesis.
I am attaching a short video comparing the reaction of these two materials to direct light. Summary: the fabric for the projector is probably not bad, but it still remains in the box, because I did not manage to achieve the desired effect with it.
Wrinkles that cannot be ironed out
Well, ok, I ordered fabric from China before, why didn’t it fit? The fact is that this fabric is sent folded. On the one hand, it is advisable, it turns out savings on delivery. But on the other hand, the fabric eventually arrives all in folds.
Wrinkles cannot be smoothed out. By the way, the fabric for the projector is also delivered folded. Although it says it can be ironed, I never got a smooth surface. Moreover, it also stretches from the steamer, not much, but after that the background will be swollen — it will not work to lay it out neatly on the table.
High-quality fabric
Therefore, I contacted the seller and asked him about the conditions for sending this fabric in a roll. Actually, I was hoping that he would agree to send a small piece of fabric with a paid delivery. But their target audience is clearly some kind of workwear sewing and sewing workshops. Therefore, he said: «We recommend that you buy 8 meters or 10 meters, so we will pack them in rolls. And if you buy 10 meters or more, there will be an additional 15% discount» and gave a link to this product.
After wandering a little through his store, I found a better option, where 9 meters were sold at a price comparable to 8 meters from his offer 🙂 having specified whether he would send me these 9 meters in a roll, I made an order. Delivery took 1 month. The courier brought me the roll, everything was tracked.
Please note: you need to order 3 sets of this product (3 pcs x 3 meters = 9 meters) than the fabric will be sent in a roll.
Delivery method
The only nuisance was that they did not ship bulky goods by standard shipping method. And despite my question about the delivery method, the seller apparently did not know this nuance himself. Therefore, I had to cancel the order, wait for a refund, and then re-order with Cainiao Heavy Parcel delivery.
Therefore, I strongly recommend you to ask the seller about the delivery method to your city / country, so you will not waste time on all these minor troubles. After all, everything was done quickly, the seller was very polite, worked promptly, so I can fully recommend this product.
Fabric sizes
The width of the background (140 cm is the maximum) will probably not seem very comfortable for a photographer. Yes, it is true. But no one bothers to cut the roll into several parts 2-3 meters long and put one part on top of the other. I often use as a background the first piece of fabric, which arrived folded, if I need to shoot something quickly. And even in spite of all these folds and other defects, the fabric scatters everything. So even if there are joints, you can light up the background. Although I will make a reservation, I did not set myself such a goal, so I cannot give any recommendations on how the parts of the background should be better fastened in this case.
When it comes to shooting small items or layout of clothing, 140 cm width is sufficient. But then the question arises: if a small piece of fabric is enough for you, why must you waste money on a roll? The answer is simple: here everyone decides for himself what is easier for him. If you are ready to iron out persistently all those creases, then it really makes no sense to pay for a roll of 9 meters. In this sense, I reserve the right to be not very effective in this task or not having a good debugging tool.
And yet, it seems to me that such a background is a great solution for a large number of tasks. It is great for bloggers, diy-channels, unboxing videos. Online stores win the most. And the offices of these stores are most often concentrated in some business centers. So why not find a couple more companions? It is better to chip in for buing one roll and immediately get a high-quality result.
Affiliate links
I think you are all familiar with this term, and I am no an exception. Of course, I put in a lot of effort and I want to get back at least the cost of all those tests. Therefore, if you click on my link when you are ready to buy the product, then I will receive a small refund. The lifetime of a cookie from the moment you click on the link until the payment is made is 3 days, after then my link becomes inactive and i will not get refund. I do not insist on this action, but I will be happy if you want to thank me in this way.
And of course, the main principle of the development of the world is to share knowledge with others, so spread my video with this life hack, put likes and comments. A good response and your interest motivates me to new achievements.