I assume you are trying to make a setup for solid black/white backgrounds. If so, here's a few suggestions....

You can try finding a very flat black paint and painting a board or something similar. However, it will show flash reflections to some degree and anything that falls on it (musk, litter, etc.). You can cut down on the reflections by carefully orienting your flash. And after the shot, with some careful cloning and exposure tweaking, you can make it pretty black.

Here's a rubber boa on a shiny black table. By carefully orienting the flash (staying low) and a little cloning, I was able to make a non-distracting background -


However, I find black cloth more useful. I use a cheap piece of black "velveteen" cloth I bought at walmart. As long as I get it pretty flat and orient the fibers so they point towards the camera (so flash doesn't reflect) I get decent shots. I can clone out any minor debris with ease and you can adjust the contrast/levels to blacken it if it shows up too light. Remember the camera will probably overexpose a mostly black background, so you may have to do some exposure compensation.

You could certainly drape a piece like this over a box to get a larger background.

For animals that are sitting on something (a branch) any black object held far enough behind them does the job.

This chondro was on a branch in front of a black collapsible photography reflector (held about 2 feet behind it) -


and this treefrog was simply shot while being held by a guy wearing a black teeshirt -


Here'a another guy getting the shot -


-----
Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

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