If you’re like me, you probably have a closet randomly filled with bricks, boards, and construction scraps just in case you need an interesting surface to shoot. New things Duo Boards’ photographic surface Start changing my messy studio and this photography tutorial shows you how useful these backgrounds can be!
As I just mentioned, one of the most embarrassing areas of my entire photography studio is the closet, where I keep all my products and food photography backgrounds. I have a rat nest made of different woods like IPE, walnut, reclaimed barn bar and driftwood. My wood collection is rivaled only by Home Depot’s piles of rubble that barely move because they’re so heavy. While I have quite a collection, in practice most of these surfaces are too small to produce anything substantial and too shiny to give me the photographic results I desire in my photography. head.
When V-Flat World contacted me and asked if I had tried their new photography backgrounds, Duo board, I was quite attractive. Fstoppers have a few V-Flat World V Flats in both Puerto Rico and studios in our states, and we use them all the time. Great quality, and best of all, they’re much easier to transport because they fold. So much in love with their first product, I’m excited to see how these Duos look and work.
Now, a patterned backdrop or a backdrop for taking photos of food and products is nothing new. However, in the past, these products were of such low quality that you could easily tell they weren’t real surfaces, or that a single panel was super expensive to make or buy yourself. For example, a single 24×48 inch large format brick from Home Depot costs about $40 and it weighs 35 pounds. Not only are these cases extremely heavy, they have only one side that you can shoot at, modified cases can be extremely sharp to handle, and they are so brittle that they often crack and crumble.
Fortunately, Duo Boards solves most of the problems you might have with other photographic surfaces. If you’d like to see how I used a few of these panels to create the two images below, check out the photography video tutorial at the top of this post. For this article, I wanted to highlight some of the benefits these signs have to my DIY scrapbooking collection and some alternatives in the world of food photography backdrops.
Different sizes
The biggest problem I have with many of the tiles and planks in my own studio is that they aren’t large enough to create a usable photography area. Duo Boards come in two different sizes, 24 x 24 inches and 30 x 40 inches. Smaller panels would be great if you’re traveling or have limited space in your studio, but for me the big advantage is the larger panels as they’re still small enough to fit in a car. but big enough to shoot larger products and food setups. So for me, these are the boards I like in my studio.
Probably the closest competitor to Duo Boards is a photography backdrop created by Replica Surfaces. These boards are slightly smaller than the 24×24-inch Duo Boards (and also more expensive and single-sided, more later) and are really only useful for tighter layouts and smaller products. Comparing the larger 30 x 40 inch Duo Boards to my large format tiles from big box stores, the 30 inch wider may not be much, but that extra 6 inches really comes in handy when you’re building a set. as small as I did with the cigar pictured above.
Super realistic print
Another thing that impressed me with Duo Boards is the print quality. I’ve bought photography backdrops on Amazon before, and most of those cheap products don’t have a high resolution. Plus, many of these products feature repeating patterns that make your wood, terrazzo or tile look cheap and fake instantly. I used to fix this using Photoshop to add variety and break up repetitive patterns, but it’s a big hit and really doesn’t work with video footage.
The four Duo boards I have in my studio are Gray/Dark Chalk, Aged Cutting Board and Butcher’s Block, Iced and Midnight Cement, French and Terracotta Clay. Each of these surfaces looks great and captures exactly the mood their names represent. You can tell these panels are made for high end photography and since they are printed at 1,000 dpi the quality is much better than any other surface I have used before.
Two-sided
When it comes to value, Duo Boards are much better than any other surface I’ve used because each gives you two completely different textures to create those perfect shots. Unlike my heavyweight tiles or the boards from Replica Surfaces, which only have one usable pattern, each Duo Board comes with a different variation of the main textured theme. So if you get a subway tile board, you’ll have both white and black tiles. My clay board features both the delightful green French clay as well as the powerful Terracotta Blush orange clay. With other alternatives, you will have to buy more boards or bricks, which means that Duo Boards cost is actually 50% cheaper if not more.
Durable construction
I’m not sure exactly what material these Duo Boards are made of, but it appears to be a laminated plastic. They’re both hard and stiff but not heavy, which is a nice break from some of the other surfaces I’ve accumulated over the years. The laminated surface is not super shiny like laminated name cards or restaurant menus but instead resembles antiglare matte photographic paper from a premium printing lab. Of course, unlike matte prints, these panels are much more durable and scratch resistant. While accidentally spilling BBQ sauce during my own shoot, I was pleased to find that the panels cleaned easily with a wet wipe even after I let them dry completely over the weekend.
Price
We all know most of the equipment used for photography has a “photography tax” added to the price. The 24×24 inch Duo Board costs $74.95 and the larger 30×40 inch Duo Board is $119.95. For me, this is a big sigh of relief because they don’t really cost the difference from my really heavy bricks or the cost of building your own after driving around town and wasting time. time in the store. Plus, when you get two different surfaces in one lightweight, easy-to-carry board, it seems a lot easier to buy a single Duo Board than with some of the alternatives.
Now, as I mentioned, you can find cheaper backdrops on Amazon, but they are almost always smaller and at least the prints never look as good as advertised in my experience. For comparison, Replica Surfaces only offers a 23×23 inch background and it costs $77. So with those being an inch shorter on both sides and only one texture to capture, I can’t imagine why anyone would choose the Replica Surfaces board over the Duo Board unless you simply like one of their designs over. Of course, I prefer the larger 30×40 inch boards, which they don’t even offer.
Special Fstoppers discount
This post is a sponsored post by V Flat World, and as part of this review and photo session, they extended a special 10% discount to all of our readers. Simply use the discount code”FSTOPERS10“in payment process and you can save a little on your entire order. Remember, even though this is a sponsored post, I 100% defend my opinions and experiences using these boards.
All in all, while I don’t take too many product and food photos, using Duo Boards and building these two unique images has been a pretty enjoyable experience. Like I said, I totally despise all the random pieces of wood and brick I have lying around my studio and having a few professional surfaces take up little space is a welcome change. for those times when I need to build a bit of a photography kit for food, product or still life. At this point in my photography career, I appreciate well-designed systems and ecosystems that make my life easier, more organized, and always give me results. and really. These Duo Boards, along with portfolio box, This is an unexpected upgrade to my own food and product photography workflow and I look forward to using it even more in my future work. Who knows, maybe I could even use some of these as backdrops for close-up shots!
