home made light box

[Cloven]

With the help of this forum, as well as another studio photography blog, I put together my own light box. I made a 24"x24"x24" cube, stretched white fabric over it, put a piece of white bristol board inside for the infinity edge, then made the arch piece to connect the light sockets to. I used left over wood sitting around our shop, as well as light sockets, light project boxes, and wiring left overs, so I only had to pay ~$12 for the halogens and ~$13 for the fabric.

The interior is a little larger than some of the DIY's and other light boxes demonstrated, but I wanted something a bit larger for future turned bowls.
For the ability to get consistent high quality pictures, it can't be beat. You're able to control the light temperature by what bulbs you put in, eliminate shadows, use a wider range of camera settings to get swirls/wood grain to show better, etc. Consistency and repeatability, that's its greatest strength; is can be overcast or sunny, you'll get identical pictures. It took me about 3 hours to get the whole thing built.
It's certainly not small, the foot print is a bit big relative to the pens I'm photographing, but I have the room to store something like this. I'm sure I'd be able to engineer something where it can collapse to take up less room, but that's for later.

 

[BJohn]

Looks nice, wish I had the room to build that. I would have to make it collapsible, so I can store it away.

 

[76winger]

It looks good and should be very effective for you photographs. Next step will be to get your white balance on your camera dialed in to work with the color temperature of the lights you're using.

 

[rblakemore]

I like your idea a lot; in fact, I will use it as a model to make a small pen studio for me.
A few questions please,
Which lights are you using?
What material is this?

 

[navycop]

I like the idea.. Alittle big but it works.. Are those business card prototypes?

 

[Cloven]

The lights are a 3 pack of 45W halogen floods I found at Walmart.
I went with floods because then I don't need a shroud or some other form of barrier behind the bulbs.
The material is just a simple 65% cotton 35% polyester white fabric I picked up at the local fabric store. There were other 100% cottons that were less sheer, but they were about $20/m, and the fabric I got was $6/m.
I found that if I set my camera to a colour temperature of 3,000K, then the RGB histograms line right up and the white balance looks great.
Navycop: in the background? Yes, those are business card and company logo prototypes.

 

[Lenny]

It looks like a nice "big" setup!
I wonder though ...what would be the best, or at least best value, bulbs to look for in a home made setup like this? I know most people usually criticize the bulbs that come with the inexpensive light tent kits out there. What have others found that work well?

 

[Cloven]

Well ideally, the closest to 'daylight', or a colour temperature over 5000K, would be the best. Fluorescent can have trouble delivering that. I've heard that LED has a great spectrum, but doesn't put out as many lumens, so more are needed.

 

[lwalper]

I built mine from a filing cabinet hanging file set. I stretch a white T-shirt over the frame for diffusion. It comes apart, stores flat. The three bulbs are 50 watt halogen. In-camera color correction for tungsten lighting seems to work well. Getting enough light is the real issue for me. The bulbs are only about 4 inches from the cover, but I over expose by 1.5 - 2 stops from what the exposure meter tries to do, then adjust the levels in Photoshop which is usually just one click and it comes out pretty decent. The camera is not particularly special -- Olympus 4 mPixle, several years old, but it has a pretty decent lens which focuses well.

I like that larger setup. I just don't have the space to store it between shots.

 

[Bill Arnold]

That's a good looking tent and should do the job nicely.

When I wanted something along that line, I looked at what was available online and found this one. I also bought a third lamp to use with it. So far, I've only tested with a 10mp pocket camera and got decent photos with two lamps. Gotta take time to shoot some new stuff I've turned recently.