Topic: Fun with a lightbox

[idolminds]

So tonight I made a ghetto lightbox out of a cardboard box and some tissue paper. Heres some results.

My lighter


My watch


My DS (you can see the ugly box reflecting in the screen...doesnt work so well with large, flat, reflective areas)


Little figure dude


Chicken...dish...thingy


My brothers watch


Camel figure thing (the base still had some dust on it...oops)


A small perfume bottle


Another small perfume bottle


This thing is great for taking pics of small things...like...painted figures...HINT.

I only had 2 lamps which I used to light the sides. Hopefully next time I can locate a 3rd lamp to shine from the top.

[PyroMenace]

Im an idiot. I read that first line which had lightbox and saw the picture and thought, "He made that lighter out of cardboard and tissue paper?!?"

[Quemaqua]

Haha... dude, that's awesome!  You need to explain the process of this contraption.  Sy is goning to make one like... yesterday.

[sirean_syan]

I've got something close with how I'm actually doing my mini-photos now... although I might be fun to get a perfect thing going.

I dig the watch, btw.

[Quemaqua]

Didn't even see the link, heh.  That was a cool little article.  I think I may just have to try that.  Our next project, Sy?

[idolminds]

Its super easy to make. I had more trouble finding the damn box to cut up than putting the mess together. Once its set up you just start looking around for random things to photograph because its so cool.

I have to mess with my exposures. The screen on my camera can give the wrong impression, so images turn out darker than they look in the screen. The pics I thought were going to be overexposed ended up being the better looking pics. For example the fancy perfume bottle I did a lot of adjustments on in PS, where my watch was just a slight levels adjustment.

[sirean_syan]

Alright. Digging up an old topic here because I think I'm going to give this a shot again. I tried one when you posted this, but it was too small to really do any good. I found a 16x12 box, so hopefully this will give me better results.

I'm also thinking of trying to put this together and get something a little more permanent. Could be fun. I'll probably go a little smaller, but the idea will be the same.

[sirean_syan]

Well, I got a box together and did some test. I'm much happier with the results this time around and am pretty sure I'm going to go forward with my plans to build something more durable this weekend.

Here are the results of my test, the only change made was some resizing to match the size with various camera. It's still fairly high resolution, so you might want to download it then look at some outside program. I also tried to be as consistent as possible.

Here's the link. (1.3mb... sorry Idol)

You might also notice that I have three cameras again... it's a sad story involving much weakness on my part. After I stupidly broke and returned my first Canon A630 I always missed it. The Canon S3 has served me well and did awesome stuff while in Thailand (I should probably upload some pictures... huh?), I could never quite get the macro quality out of it that I felt the like A630 gave me. Well, a couple of weeks ago the screen on Aimee's camera broke while traveling and we went shopping to replace it this weekend. After my experience with Best Buy and past experiences Aimee had with Ritz/Wolfe camera, she decided that was going to be the place to buy the camera from. While we were there I noticed they still had the A630 in stock, on clearance. I managed to hold off, but that didn't last. Aimee had to order the camera she wanted (a Canon SD850is) and it came in today. I went to pick it up today and while in the process I was talking to the sells person about my experiences with the two cameras. It turned out that they didn't expect to get another A630 in stock ever again and she really didn't know what was going to give it a direct replacement in the lineup and neither of us had seen an news of it actually getting a direct successor. So, I caved and walked out the door with it.

Looking at the results of my test, I'm happy I did and it's good to see that it wasn't just my imagination that the S3 was taking noisier macro shots with slightly less true colors.

[Quemaqua]

I think you did right.  Maybe not financially, heh, but I didn't read all your post before looking at the comparison, and after about a minute of looking, I decided it was clear that I liked the A630 shot the best between them.  It just seemed the clearest.

Anyway... cool stuff.  I've been thinking that it would be nice to build a lightbox just because it would be a more permanent setup in which to take mini pictures, but I don't have the time to think about that shit right now.  It's something I'll think about, though, just because the ones I've been taking have been sort of lousy, and having a nice little thing to just setup and use would help.

[sirean_syan]

This thing is fun. It's nice to have something that filters the light a little without having to mess with my painting setup. I'm definitely building a more permanent one this weekend.

[sirean_syan]

Alright. I got all the stuff together yesterday and now have a studier, more permanent light box. I used that link I put up earlier as a guide, but with a few of my own modifications. I made it a little smaller because most of the things I take pictures of tend to be smaller and didn't glue it so I can take it apart to store or change pieces out should I ever desire another size. I also used screwable junctions for the legs so I can level it out a little easier, not that it was really critical but I knew my pieces of PVC were all going to be different sizes since I lack better cutting equipment. The final modification was the addition of all those metal washers on the frame so I can use magnets to hold the cover in place or put up backdrops.




So yeah, it's worked out cool in the few test I've done so far. Here are some samples of stuff I have lying around because samples are fun with some various backdrops I picked up. They aren't much more than scrapbooking paper, but they do some fun stuff to the pictures.

[TheOtherBelmont]

Cool stuff, that light box gives the pictures an extra something to the detail, I especially like the picture of the rock(quartz crystals I'm guessing?)

[Quemaqua]

I'm gonna' try to finish my marine Captain today for our army, and if all goes as planned, I'm gonna' have Sy take pictures of it and also take some with my camera for comparison... using his lightbox, of course.  I'd like to make a small one myself, which I may undertake at some point in the near future.

[sirean_syan]

I wouldn't suggest going too small. The first one I made with cardboard was only about 10"x10"x10" and it wasn't big enough for the light to really get into it and do what it was supposed to. It seems like something on the order of no less than 13" for the smallest sides and a 15" long side is about the size to shoot for.

[sirean_syan]

Too much fun. Although I didn't really need the light box for the shot, it definitely helped.

[Quemaqua]

That's awesome, what is that?

[sirean_syan]

That's one of those bubble images in a glass shape. My parents brought it back for me after one of their trips to Japan and, as they understood it, it's of a ghost that takes care of children. What I did was basically ran a laser through it with a pointer.

Here's another piece of fun, this one's pretty high resolution though so you get a link.