DIY Lightbox - for Magazine-style images

[Kaido]

Built my Lightbox based on these plans:

http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/light_box_light_tent

Some sample pictures:

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/145/dsc0020ir1.jpg

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/9576/dsc0027mc1.jpg

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/6388/dsc0008dg4.jpg

http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/3931/dsc0036nd5.jpg

Shot with some equipment I had lying around, nothing fancy. D70s with a 50mm f/1.8d and color-corrected in Aperture. Total cost was under $20. I used 3/4" PVC pipe (cost $1.99 per 10' length from Home Depot, got a couple of those, and some long drywall screws in place of the sheetmetal screws). The PVC glue is pretty smelly, so be sure to do it outside or in a shop with a fan. I used a 1-hole punch to put holes in the poster board for the screws. I'd recommend picking up a light for the top as well, to get more even lighting. You can cut a cardboard box down to size and duct tape it together, that way you have a basic case to carry and store it in.

Nice little afternoon project :thumbsup:

 

[Kaido]

A quick video test:

http://orionmods.com/mov/Lightbox.mov

I need to lock in the white balance next time, but it's looking pretty good so far I also got the wrong size poster board, Staples only had 22x28" instead of the 36" stuff, so I had to zoom in on my pics so you wouldn't see the border. Awesome!

 

[allies]

Pretty slick. Thanks.

 

[Fardringle]

I took these using my light box that I made using a similar plan to yours except that mine is a 2' x 3' wooden box instead of PVC pipes. I used the box since I already had it left over from another project and painted it bright white then put the white poster board inside to hide the corners of the box. I'm using a GE Reveal light bulb that is supposed to emulate natural sunlight but actually has a color temperature of 3300 according to my Fuji and Adobe Lightroom. The fixed light makes it easy to ensure the correct colors in the pictures.

You may notice that the background color isn't exactly the same in all of the pictures. That's because I "adjusted" some of them to make the colors of the rocks as close to the real things as possible since some of them didn't turn out quite right in the original photographs. As a comparison, I took shots of a few of the rocks under normal lighting conditions both indoors and outdoors and couldn't get them to look right no matter what I did, so the light box definitely helped!

 

[rivan]

Very nice. I've been considering building one of these for years.

Maybe I'll actually find/make time to do it in another 2 or 3

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Fardringle
I took these using my light box that I made using a similar plan to yours except that mine is a 2' x 3' wooden box instead of PVC pipes. I used the box since I already had it left over from another project and painted it bright white then put the white poster board inside to hide the corners of the box. I'm using a GE Reveal light bulb that is supposed to emulate natural sunlight but actually has a color temperature of 3300 according to my Fuji and Adobe Lightroom. The fixed light makes it easy to ensure the correct colors in the pictures.

You may notice that the background color isn't exactly the same in all of the pictures. That's because I "adjusted" some of them to make the colors of the rocks as close to the real things as possible since some of them didn't turn out quite right in the original photographs. As a comparison, I took shots of a few of the rocks under normal lighting conditions both indoors and outdoors and couldn't get them to look right no matter what I did, so the light box definitely helped!

Nice! Yeah, you could even make a lightbox out of cardboard if you wanted. It doesn't really matter what the material is. I like the PVC design because you can pop off the legs and flatten it, which is nice because I don't have a lot of empty space to store a giant lightbox. As far as color correction goes, I just used Aperture 2.1 and hit auto-levels, auto-color (b&w + color), and then upped the definition (sharpness). Worked out pretty nicely!

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: rivan
Very nice. I've been considering building one of these for years.

Maybe I'll actually find/make time to do it in another 2 or 3

Yeah my parts were actually sitting in the basement for the last 6 months, I just got around to building it :laugh: