first attempt with a light tent, what can i do to improve?

[katia]

hey guys, the other day i built myself a light tent with some pvc pipe, a white sheet, and some super cheap clip on lamps from walmart. it's a pretty ghetto setup, and unfortunately i didn't think to take any pictures of the actual tent, but these are some of my first attempt.

my first problem was the background turned out a lot more grey than white. so i had to up the exposure in PS to turn the background white, which in turn over-exposed the images and made them look a little flat. so i opened levels, and played around with a few of the presets, which i think gave me a good balance between white background and good, *nearly* true-to-life colors.

this is the final edit:



this is the link to the first "flat looking" edit:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...it1280x768.jpg

and this is the original, SOOC:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b7...ember15043.jpg

like i said i was using 2 small clip-lamps (not very bright, about 15 watts each) on the right, and left, aimed on the outside of the white sheet, and another lamp above the tent, which was a different type of bulb altogether. not ideal, i know, but like i said this was my first attempt.

i was also using on camera flash, as i don't have an external flash yet.

my EXIF data:

Camera: Nikon D90
Exposure: 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 105 mm
ISO Speed: 800
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: On, Return detected (what does return detected mean?)

what can i do to improve photos like these? is it possible to get a nice, clean white background without any harsh post-processing? are there any post-processing techniques/tutorials you guys can share with me? what can i improve upon, and is there any other equipment that would be recommended for this type of shooting? (definitely thinking of investing in a macro ring flash, would that be appropriate for this type of macro work?)

overall, do you like the picture, or do you immediately see something wrong with it?

i will post the link to the rest of the set once they are done uploading to flickr, it will probably be sometime tomorrow.

thanks everyone.

[zona5101]

Your final image looks great. It would be nice if you had more depth of field. Looking at your sooc shot it is underexposed. There is a lot of white in there so the camera is going to try and make it gray - you need to compensate for that with upping your exposure compensation. Getting the exposure right would have also made your image less flat/better colors. Even then you still may want to punch up the color in post to your liking.
It is not easy to get the box perfectly white and not have your subject blown or have the edges of the subject haloed. Experiment with your exposure comp and see how close you can get. Then use your PS tool to paint over the any hints of gray and to punch up the colors to your liking.

[katia]

thanks zona! i'm gonna have another go at it once the subjects have finished digesting...

:P here is the link to the rest of the photos:

Flickr: serpentsss' Photostream

[bdimcheff]

Wow, did your snake enjoy the lightbox? I like that the snake's head is coming out from underneath itself. It would be nice, I think, if you could make the shadow under his (her?) head less hard. I suspect that was caused by your on-camera flash. You might be able to do away with it entirely. The color temperature of your flash is probably different from your lights anyways, which can make things look funny.