Collapsible Lightbox

[Tesla Ranger]

After coming to the conclusion that 1) I needed a lightbox and 2) it needed to be durable enough to survive being shuffled around and dismantled a lot. I do all my work inside a small apartment so a lightbox large enough to hold the items I usually make would be too large to easily stow. I wound up using 1/4" hardboard for the structure and lining it with poster board. The tracing paper was left over from a starter leathercraft kit I picked up from Tandy five years ago (always figured I'd use it someday). The light was provided by a couple work lamps with 100W Daylight LED bulbs. I'd originally tried CFL bulbs to keep the costs down, but everything was coming out all yellow. The LED's were pricier but I think they've turned out pretty well. If anyone's particularly interested, I wrote all the details and posted all the pictures on my little, personal "blog-thing" here

A completed box:

After I figured out it would work better on its side:

Broken down:

With CFL bulbs:

With LED bulbs:

Edited June 14, 2014 by Tesla Ranger

[Hi Im Joe]

You can use CFL bulbs as long as you adjust the white balance either in camera or in post. I recommend shooting everything in a RAW format and then editing and finally saving the file as a JPG. I personally use Lightroom because I don't need pixel by pixel editing and lightroom is pretty intuitive and easy to learn.

It gives you a ton of flexibility to edit a RAW file instead of a JPG. For example you can change the white balance to w/e you want if you shoot in RAW.

BTW...your lightbox looks great. I need to do this.

[Tesla Ranger]

When I started taking pictures I was using a Canon 340 HS (on the theory that a point and shoot would be better than a smartphone) and I think that that could've taken pictures in RAW. I didn't quite get that far into getting familiar with that particular camera. It seemed like it was highly specialized for taking pictures of people (rather than items) and I couldn't get it to focus well on anything a few inches away. It might have just been noobishness on my part, but I found my smartphone was taking better photos in this conditions and wound up taking the Canon back to the store. I probably should make an effort to learn more about photography but so far I've made do with pictures that were just "good enough".

[Hi Im Joe]

When I started taking pictures I was using a Canon 340 HS (on the theory that a point and shoot would be better than a smartphone) and I think that that could've taken pictures in RAW. I didn't quite get that far into getting familiar with that particular camera. It seemed like it was highly specialized for taking pictures of people (rather than items) and I couldn't get it to focus well on anything a few inches away. It might have just been noobishness on my part, but I found my smartphone was taking better photos in this conditions and wound up taking the Canon back to the store. I probably should make an effort to learn more about photography but so far I've made do with pictures that were just "good enough".

What you really want is a macro lens or the point and shoot may have a macro function. I think on some cameras it looks like a little flower. It should let you focus closer than the standard settings.

[BDAZ]

It's tough to be a photo tent for cost ($11.00) and foldability I sometimes put it on a piece of perspex and light from below as well.

This one is 17" on a side.

Cya!

Bob

Edited June 15, 2014 by BDAZ

[Tesla Ranger]

Well that would've saved me a fair bit of time if I'd've been able to find one of those. I did look for light tents available in my area but none of the ones I could find were more than 10"-12" on a side. That one certainly looks like it would've worked nicely though.

[BDAZ]

http://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.Xphoto+tent&_nkw=photo+tent&_sacat=0&_from=R40

No shortage here!

Cya!

Bob