I am looking into buying, building, or in some way creating a small lightbox commonly used as mini studio for product photography. I was just wondering if any of you guys had any experience in doing this. I don't want to spend a lot of money on it and it would be nice if it was more or less portable. It should be big enough to photograph things as large as lamps and computers and middle sized items. I'd appreciate any comments!
I've built a lightbox for myself, and I'll tell you, they're easy to make. I'll give you a basic plan how to make a lightbox. If you want to make a bigger one you'll just have to figure out something bigger for your backdrop. The purposes for lightboxes are:
Lightboxes are often used for product photography, or flowers, or just any type of photography to make your subject stand out. Here's my first work in a lightbox:
The idea is to buy poster board (or something similar - it needs to be flexible) as a background , and build your lightbox frame around that. I used tissue paper taped to a wooden frame as my diffusing material. You could just drape a sheet over your frame if you wanted a quick solution. I'm actually thinking of building a PVC frame for my next lightbox, as it would be very easy to assemble quickly.
Here's some product photography I did inside my lightbox:
I guess the lights are the most expensive thing that you'll need. You could just buy a couple inexpensive florescent lights from HD, or you could invest in some quality studio lights- it's your choice.You don't have to buy tinted lights (to correctly represent daylight), but just make sure you do a custom white balance for the lighting inside your lightbox.
Here is what my lightbox looks like:
Those are just some of my ideas that I thought would help you. Google on DIY lightbox, and you'll find lots of different versions of the same basic idea.
Wow! Thank you so much. It's encouraging to hear that you have the experience of making one yourself. Anyone else have anything to comment before I make an exact dupicate of Tim's light box on a larger scale? By the way, lots of those images look very professional. Can't wait to get started myself.
I'd love to see your new lightbox and some photos you've taken in it.