Making your own Lightbox and Backdrops

tinachamberlain

I found 2 great articles that I wanted to share with others. I have been searching for a way to make my own Light Box and my own Backdrops as I really cannot afford to buy any more "accessories" right now. I thought I would share these with the rest of the forum, in case somebody else is in my position and can't afford to buy them but wants to have these type of items for their photography.

Make your own Light Box. http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/light_box_light_tent

Make your own Backdrop. http://www.betterphoto.com/exploring/MakingBackDrops.asp

I did search this forum and I couldn't locate this type of information, however I may have searched incorrectly.

I hope this information is as useful to others as it has been to me.

Regards,

Tina

TylerW

Thanks for that! I'm seeing a lightbox appearing in my garage in the near future!

EDIT: I ended up having a boring forcast for my friday night, so it happened a LOT sooner that I imagined. Here's a few initial tests. My lighting needs a bit of refining, but overall I'm pretty pleased!

Skippy

TylerW wrote:

Thanks for that! I'm seeing a lightbox appearing in my garage in the near future!

EDIT: I ended up having a boring forcast for my friday night, so it happened a LOT sooner that I imagined. Here's a few initial tests. My lighting needs a bit of refining, but overall I'm pretty pleased!

These look great Tyler for your tests shots, so what sort of lights did you go with as your light source???
I notice in the tutorial on how to make the light tent the original Aurthor said he changed to those fluro type bulbs because they are cooler.

The bottle shot is not straight but that can easily be fixed.
Nice work Tyler ..... Skippy

tinachamberlain

Good job Tyler! My forecast looks really bad for today so I think I'll be doing the same.

The remote control one looks really good for lighting, just use a different background.

I think I may purchase a few different colored ones and swap them around. Any suggestions on some good choices? I was thinking of White, Black, Blue, Purple (maybe Lilac Purple), Red, and a Green. Are those good ones?

Congrats on getting it accomplished so quickly!

TylerW

tinachamberlain wrote:

Good job Tyler! My forecast looks really bad for today so I think I'll be doing the same.
Congrats on getting it accomplished so quickly!

Good luck with it! I ended up with fourescent blubs. They aren't rated for a specific color temp, so I have to do a manual WB to get it right. The other gotcha I ran into was the set up time of the glue for the PVC pipe. The tutorial said I'd have about a minute. But I guess I got the quick drying stuff, mine was bonded in about 5 seconds. So pay attention to that if you think you may need to make some adjustments.

tinachamberlain

Thanks Tyler!!! We're putting it together right now and I think we are going to attempt it without glueing it first, to see how stable it is without it. What type of glue did you use????

We just have the 60 watt halogen right now, but I think I will end up buying different bulbs and lights. I have to see how the pics come out once we have it all set-up. I'm hoping I can make do with what I have, but I have a feeling I will have to get additional lights/bulbs.