My Home made light box

[TheShutterHappyBaker]

Tonight after work I went shopping for materials to make a simple home made light box. After spending about 40 minutes constructing it, I set up my Rebel and took a bunch of photos. The first thing I noticed was that I was lacking light still. So next week I'll pick up to more lamps to see if that helps.

So... here is a shot of my 75-300mm lens. I took lots of pictures of several different objects, but I liked this one the best.



Camera Model Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XS
Shooting Date/Time 7/22/2010 8:12:42 PM
Shooting Mode Manual Exposure
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 0.3
Av( Aperture Value ) 20.0
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
ISO Speed 100
Lens EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Focal Length 36.0mm
Image Quality RAW
Flash On
Flash Type Built-In Flash
White Balance Mode Auto
AF Mode One-Shot AF
Picture Style Faithful

The shot was taken with a high aperture value to get good depth of field, and a low shutter speed to get decent exposure.

Due to the lack of light, I did have to correct some things in the Canon Digital Photo Professional, and Photoshop CS5. The background still isn't entirely white.

[windrider86]

nicely done. I bet you could get the background white by using an adjustment level

[Evn1ngStar]

You might also try changing the white balance setting in your camera to tungsten. That would also get rid of that yellowish cast. Just be sure to reset your white balance after your shoot in the lightbox.

[TheShutterHappyBaker]

Originally Posted by Evn1ngStar

You might also try changing the white balance setting in your camera to tungsten. That would also get rid of that yellowish cast. Just be sure to reset your white balance after your shoot in the lightbox.

Thanks for the advice. I think some of the photos I took were with the WB set to Tungsten. I think I went through all of them before I realized that my shutter was too fast. Sometime over the weekend I'm going to try again to see what happens with a slow shutter and a tungsten white balance. I'll try to remember to adjust the WB Shift as necessary as well.

Thanks again!

Chris

[miraroadvolfire]

Originally Posted by TheShutterHappyBaker

Tonight after work I went shopping for materials to make a simple home made light box. After spending about 40 minutes constructing it, I set up my Rebel and took a bunch of photos. The first thing I noticed was that I was lacking light still. So next week I'll pick up to more lamps to see if that helps.

So... here is a shot of my 75-300mm lens. I took lots of pictures of several different objects, but I liked this one the best.



Camera Model Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XS
Shooting Date/Time 7/22/2010 8:12:42 PM
Shooting Mode Manual Exposure
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 0.3
Av( Aperture Value ) 20.0
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
ISO Speed 100
Lens EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Focal Length 36.0mm
Image Quality RAW
Flash On
Flash Type Built-In Flash
White Balance Mode Auto
AF Mode One-Shot AF
Picture Style Faithful

The shot was taken with a high aperture value to get good depth of field, and a low shutter speed to get decent exposure.

Due to the lack of light, I did have to correct some things in the Canon Digital Photo Professional, and Photoshop CS5. The background still isn't entirely white.

Lets see what you made and how you made it and what type of light are you using in the box.

[TheShutterHappyBaker]

Originally Posted by miraroadvolfire

Lets see what you made and how you made it and what
type of light are you using in the box.

Well, the box itself came from Homemade Light Box for Product Photography » StudioLighting.net

I bought the foam board (20"x30") at Michael's, for $4.99 per sheet (Canadian dollars).
The lamps I purchased at my local Canadian Tire. They are just cheap desk lamps with clamps on them. They were $7.99 a piece. And the bulbs are 23w (100w equivalent) Noma Compact Fluorescent bulbs I'm going to buy 2 more lamps when I get the chance. I also haven't done anything to hide the bottom seam at the back of the box yet. But I will come up with something soon.



The box is big, 20"x20"x30" and is sitting on my dining table lol.

[Indigo November]

I also haven't done anything to hide the bottom seam at the back of the box yet. But I will come up with something soon.

A piece (or 2) of poster board will work. Tape it to the back "wall" and to the "floor" creating a curve for that "seamless background" look. Well done, I might add! Just a WB adjustment and it would be perfect. You might also try daylight florescent bulbs, they give a much better color.

[miraroadvolfire]

Great job........

I wish they had one section just for all the home made stuff on the site. It would help looking all over the place for everything.......

Thanks for the reply........

[TheShutterHappyBaker]

Originally Posted by Indigo November

A piece (or 2) of poster board will work. Tape it to the back "wall" and to the "floor" creating a curve for that "seamless background" look. Well done, I might add! Just a WB adjustment and it would be perfect. You might also try daylight florescent bulbs, they give a much better color.

Poster board! Fantastic. I couldn't find any white masking tape unfortunately, so I may glue a strip of poster board in instead. Then, if I can get enough light in there, I'm sure it'll hide the rest. I had a hard time deciding on a bulb, so I figured I'd experiment. I live in an apartment that doesn't allow bulbs stronger than 60w, which is why I chose CF's. I'll take another look and see if I can find something with a higher rating than what I bought. I took a couple of pictures last night of a bouquet of flowers (a mix of real and fake) and used a tungsten white balance. They turned out quite nice.

This picture is untouched except for the re-sizing of course.
Shooting Mode Manual Exposure
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/8
Av( Aperture Value ) 13.0
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
ISO Speed 200
Lens EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Focal Length 55.0mm
Image Size 3888x2592
Image Quality RAW
Flash On
Flash Type Built-In Flash
Flash Exposure Compensation +1
Shutter curtain sync 1st-curtain sync
White Balance Mode Tungsten
AF Mode One-Shot AF
Picture Style Faithful




This one is photoshopped a bit.

[douglas]

Originally Posted by miraroadvolfire

Great job........

I wish they had one section just for all the home made stuff on the site. It would help looking all over the place for everything.......

Thanks for the reply........

You can find some in DPS for example
DIY Lighting Hacks for Digital Photographers

There are several threads on light boxes as well.

Also I have a set in my Flickr