I'm not sure if I've asked on here before, but I know that some of you use a light box/light tent.

Does anyone have any good recommendations for a collapsable one?

I know that you're all going to tell me how cheap and easy it is to make one, but unfortunately I don't have the space to keep one set up full time, so I would need the ability to break it down and fold it up when I'm done shooting photos.

I'm not looking to spend a ton, and am mainly interested in the tent itself since I'll probably buy cheap lights from Home Depot or something.

Anyone know of a good brand at least?

Thanks.

Honestly, if you want something half decent I would really stay away from anything from Home Depot (they sell tents now?) or the like. You are better off paying a bit extra with a HUGE return in weight reduction and durability. You might also just consider a bivy depending on the weather needs. I picked up a Marmot Earlylight a few years ago for a biking trip around Japan. It is super light and packs down to almost nothing, especially if you don't need a fly or base footprint. But, a bit of caveat emptor here, I would advise judging the 'sizing' of a tent to be 1 person less than the generally quoted number (unless you guys are realllly close )

^ i think he's talking about photography light tents, not camping tents

also, to be semi-helpful, i would ask jcat and toybot for their setup. they always come through with clean and well-lit photos.

Right-o!

so to clarify:

THIS:


NOT THIS:

Here are some DIY ideas: http://www.ikeahackers.net/2008/09/snap ... tents.html

no light box for me. too constricting..!

I use Lowell Ego table lamps. http://www.lowel.com/ego/

hahaha man the replies prove that no one reads anything completely.

come on missy, don't you know post count is more important than replying with a confident, concise, and correct answer?

nice. how do you guys act when someone isn't trying to help? hahahahaha

You don't even want to know!

Sorry, I got a little busy at work and couldn't reply back to this myself now.

So Toybot, don't you get lots of glare on the shiny toys? And what if you want to do backgrounds or colors behind?

I read it completely.
Half of those DIY you can put away when you're done.
I don't understand what you're looking for if that's the case.

Fuck that. My reply was confident, concise and correct.
Forget the post count. It's the ORANGE!

And just for the record...I don't camp.

Basic concept of a light tent/box is easy.
Kirkland just uses black plexi as a base, and I believe drapes a black fabric in the back.
I think he lights the "stage" from the left and right w/ two sources of lights.
One problem with this is you might get glare in the sense that the light isn't diffused.

A light tent/box is used to diffuse the lighting so it evens everything out.
I built a ghetto light box from a cardboard box and parchment paper back in the day.



As you can see, I had three different types of light, shining from the left, right & top.
The "background" was just a piece of white paper that runs from the back towards the base.
This way you won't see a horizontal break in the background when you take your picture.

Here's how the pic looks:


If you want a different colored background, use a different color piece of paper.
Hope this provided some "more" help than before.

Well I did check out the lights he uses then and realized that they are basically mini light tents/boxes in and of themselves, meaning the that diffuser part is actually on the light rather than around the object.

So now I know why he gets no glare.

I've seen lots of inexpensive set ups like the box one, but yeah, unfortunately I have no room to have a big cardboard box sitting around because all of the available surface area is already filled with toys. So I need some sort of collapsable deal.

Don't mean to say go w/ the cardboard deal that I did.
Even though I could have collapsed it and put it away easily.
There are quite a few options I see online. Amazon has a few.
The main purpose of the tent is to diffuse the light so any of them should work.
Other thing you should consider is the size of the object you're planning on shooting.

the cheap white collapsible photo tents on ebay do the job just fine

you can find listings for around 20 bucks shipped or less

I'm assuming for different colored backgrounds, you'd need photoshop with that setup, right?

D'oh! My bad here guys, but I think you can understand the confusion

i have something similar to this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/16-40cm-PHOTO-STUDI ... 336643058e

but i paid 12.95 + shipping and it came with 1 white and 1 black bgd that attach via little velcro tabs.

its really only good for smaller size toys maybe less than 8"
they make bigger sizes.

I use thos clip on shop lights on the sides and a bendy ikea lamp above.
it folds up into a flat round thing.

search on ebay for: Photo Light Studio Cube

Skylar, yes you are right. The Lowell Ego lamp has a diffuser built in.

i used to shoot with different colored backgrounds, but just found pitch black works the best. so black velvet background, black plexiglass as base, two lamps on either side. I do a bit of post production work in Photoshop to make the background completely black. It works BEST with brightly colored toys. If the toy is very dark or black, I pretty much don't bother shooting it as it's a real pain to make it look good with my set-up.

sometimes I would use different colored LEDs as backlighting or colored lamps, lights, strips, etc. You can get pretty creative and try a bunch of different things. But when you use LEDs or any other lights, all the other lights are turned off and you have to use a slower shutter speed.

I don't use a lightbox.

My setup:

1 x sheet of white heavy paper (apx. $1)
1 x 150 watt rated lamp holder w/ spring clip (apx. $10)
1 x 75 watt rated lamp holder w/ spring clip (apx. $5)
2 x lightbulbs (1 x 100 watt, 1 x 75 watt) (apx. $2)
1 x piece of tape or thumbtack to hold paper to wall ($??)

You can control the glare by exposure time and distance of the lighting from the figure, granted this setup will probably not produce the even lighting of a lightbox/diffuser.

Easy to set up and break down, cheap to replace.

thansk for this thread! i been wanting to set up a light studio...

i found this on ebay and am probably going to go with it...

i picked up a $15 groupon last week for $7 so after all is said and done this comes out to $22
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

i think its a decent item to try out for just around $20...

the box folds down and packs away in a storage bag when not in use. 4 fixtures included to.

the kit I got off of Ebay had the lightcube, backdrops, 2 lights, 2 5500K bulbs, stands, tripod, carrying case and shipping for around $90. Awesome deal! That's pretty much all I use for product shots.

B&H actually had a good article about the lightcubes

I'm currently in line to order this baby =



Desktop shooting stand

which actually eliminates the need for a cube.