Homemade photobox. We make photo boxes and light boxes for subject shooting

Shooting goods for electronic catalogs and online stores, jewelry, as well as food photography, which is gaining momentum, is far from a complete list of what is in demand today. Even not a photographer at all, with the desire and due perseverance, can make money on subject photography. If you correctly use devices and accessories that are offered in a variety of ways by manufacturers of modern photographic equipment, you can get excellent technical quality from pictures and spend a minimum of time on post-processing.

Test yourself - do you know everything about how to use one of the most convenient and popular accessories for product photography.

The range of her work with her head is enough to solve all the problems associated with subject photography and photography with a light cube, in particular. The acquisition of a flash is a prerequisite for obtaining technically competent photographs.

Use a tripod

If you are using a flash, you will most likely use a fast shutter speed, like 1/200 or 1/250. This is enough to not worry about the natural shaking of the hands, and hence the appearance of movement in the frame. But, if you are using lamps or natural light to illuminate your light box, you will need to work at a much slower shutter speed, such as 1/30.

Of course, you can increase it to 800-1600, but now we are talking about a high-quality result, without digital and color noise? That is why it is worth setting the camera on and using a remote shutter release. Reducing the chance of even minor camera shake increases the quality of the final image by an order of magnitude.

Choose the right background color

We have written more than once about how to do it right. But just because you're using a lightbox doesn't mean your shots always have to be . Having white and black backgrounds just means you can shoot most subjects in a traditional style without shadows. But you can also use colored backgrounds, which, as a rule, come with a light box, or shoot in, if later the background will be processed and replaced with some kind of exotic one.

Always shoot high

Even if you do not yet feel any discomfort from standing on your feet for many hours in an uncomfortable position, with your back bent, sooner or later such a pastime will make itself felt. Place the light cube on a table, not on the floor. This way you will have room to maneuver. You can take pictures from different angles.

One final bonus tip - there is no one-size-fits-all way to light a light box. You must be able to control the light and never stop experimenting in order to get a perfectly lit object and technically perfect images.

Good luck in mastery!

Let's say you want to take high-quality photos of a gadget for a review, or you are interested in subject photography at home, but only an inexpensive soap dish is at hand. How to be? You need a lightcube! About how I made my inexpensive but durable lightcube, examples of photos and much more - under the cut.

What is it?

Lightcube- This is a construction of plastic / metal frames in the form of a cube, on the sides of which a translucent diffusing fabric is stretched. The bottom and back wall of such a cube are a "subject" table. It looks something like this:

What for?

The reasons can be very different:

Like photos on a white background
I would like to have my own "mini-studio"
Interested in subject / macro photography
Conditions in the apartment do not allow you to get high-quality photos
I like to work with my hands

I decided to make a lightbox because I wanted to get high-quality photos, but my apartment has completely unsuitable conditions for this - it is “dark”, the sun practically does not get into it. In room lighting, photos rarely turned out good. Lightbox solved all these problems.

Why exactly like this?

There are many articles on the net about how you can make your own lightcube out of a cardboard box. And I had such a cube.

At first I liked everything about it, but gradually the cons began to appear: the speed of production negatively affects life expectancy, the size of the lightbox is sometimes not enough (my last “cube” had dimensions of 35 * 35 * 40 cm), the cardboard skeleton is easily damaged when replacing “diffusers” ” and the object table (they tear and get dirty over time).

Therefore, I decided to replace the “cube” skeleton with a more durable one, and make it the size I need, and not start from what size cardboard boxes I have.

Design

The idea to make a skeleton out of a wire box came spontaneously while visiting a hardware store - for my "cube" I took 3 sticks of 2 meters in length.

To create a lightbox you will need

Whatman
Box for wires
corrugated paper
Double-sided tape
small carnations

Box ~160r, Whatman paper ~20r, Corrugated paper ~50r, Adhesive tape ~40r, carnations ~30r. Total 300r.

Light

In the photo at the beginning of the last section, you can see 2 lamps and 2 lamps. Before that, I had a table lamp and a clothespin lamp, but they had different bases. I decided to buy a second “clothespin” of the same kind and take two energy-saving lamps - 23W (corresponds to 160W for an incandescent lamp), 4200K (bright white light). Such 2 lamps and 2 lamps will cost 800-900 rubles.

Assembly

I’ll make a reservation right away - I don’t pretend to be the optimal design, because I decided how to connect the faces of the “cube” with each other “on the go”. But what happened in the end, I liked it, and I decided to tell about it.

The boxes were cut as follows: 4 pieces of 50cm and 8 pieces of 35cm (these dimensions of the lightbox seemed to me optimal for use/storage):

In order to connect the "sticks" to each other, I used the feature of the boxes - a hollow structure:

And the joints were fixed with small carnations:

First I did the sides:

And then he again used the hollow construction of the boxes for the construction of the base:

After some time, the skeleton was ready:

When I fastened all the sticks together and got a box, I decided to add two stretch marks to the back wall to increase strength and stability. Stretching made from the remaining parts. I also added one "rail" to the bottom so that the future cardboard bottom does not sag down.

After I attached the bottom and pasted the drawing paper (to get a “subject table”):

At the end, I glued corrugated paper on the sides and top of the lightbox:

Everything, the lightbox is ready. With its large size, the lightbox turned out to be durable - it does not stagger or bend. For the sake of the experiment, I "accidentally" dropped the structure from the table a couple of times - the skeleton remained intact, even the paper on the sides did not have to be changed. And since with such dimensions the lightbox turned out to be quite durable, then if it were smaller, say 20x20x20cm, then it would be even stronger. And such a photo box is easy to make the size you want.

Result

"Working" state of the lightbox:

Purchased light bulbs noticeably “crawl out” of the lamp body, so I made a “continuation” of the body of paper to better focus the light on the lightbox, as well as to prevent direct rays from entering the eyes.

Examples of received photos

For a couple of years now, my camera has been Nikon Coolpix L110 (budget hyperzoom). All photos were taken with it.

Total

It turned out to be an inexpensive, but durable lightbox, the price of which is only 300 rubles. I hope this article is useful to someone.

Good luck with your experiments!

Do you do needlework and need high-quality photos of your products? Or are you just fond of subject photography, but so far at an amateur level and all the necessary tools for this are not available? Be that as it may, your faithful assistant will be lightbox made.

In contact with

This item has many names - "photobox", "photocube", "light box". Call it what you want, but by making a lightbox with your own hands, you will understand that this is an impromptu mini-studio with which you can get high-quality photos at home. Lightbox is a cube, on five sides of which a white or loose fabric is stretched. They scatter light and get rid of harsh shadows, which allows you to focus the viewer's attention directly on the subject itself.

What to make a light box?

To make a light box, you will need the following materials at hand:

Photobox with your own hands. Master classes

Lightbox out of the box

The size of the box will depend on what you are going to shoot. If these are miniature items, for example, jewelry, then you don’t need a large box. It will simply take up extra space. But if you are shooting various products for an online store, then it is better to use a larger base.

Photobox made of plastic pipes

Another way to make a photobox with your own hands - is the use of plastic pipes. This method is more complex and will require certain skills and tools, but this box looks much more aesthetically pleasing.

Styrofoam light box

The simplest and most practical light box you can do it yourself from foam sheets, such as those used for finishing ceilings. You will need four sheets in total.

Using adhesive tape, glue together three sheets of foam with the letter P. That is, you should get the back and side walls.
Place another sheet on top, but attach it only to one of the sides to make it look like a lid, and the top sheet opens and closes.
Open the top side and attach the paper to the back wall. You can just bend the sheet a little and it will already be held on the frame. The paper should be of such a size that it also covers the bottom of the photo box. Close the top to keep out the light.
Install lamps.

The practicality of such a light box lies in the fact that if the paper gets dirty, you want to change the background color or make it textured, then just open the top wall and attach another sheet. In the same way, you can hang various decor that will complement the composition.

According to this master class, you can make a cheaper version of a lightbox out of thick paper, such as watercolor, cardboard or wooden boards.

Ready-made lightboxes cost several hundred dollars., but with a minimum of funds and effort, you can make a small photo studio at home with your own hands. The most expensive of all materials will be good light bulbs with bright white light. For high-quality photos, you should not save on light.

With a photo box, you no longer have to wait for good sunny weather. and shoot only in daylight. Yes, and the time for processing photos will be significantly reduced. There is no need to adjust the white balance, contrast, remove harsh shadows, or, as happens in some cases, completely change the background, which requires special skills when working in graphic editors. Another plus is that the quality of the photo will not be affected by surrounding objects, which can sometimes very much distort the colors of the photographed object.

If you use a light box and know how to correctly compose compositions, then even pictures taken on a mobile phone will not differ much from studio photos. So that don't spend big money to something that you can easily do with your own hands with the help of detailed master classes.

What is it?

What for?

The reasons can be very different:

Why exactly like this?

There are many articles on the net about how you can make your own lightcube out of a cardboard box. And I had such a cube.

Therefore, I decided to replace the “cube” skeleton with a more durable one, and make it the size I need, and not start from what size cardboard boxes I have.

Design

The idea to make a skeleton out of a wire box came spontaneously while visiting a hardware store - for my "cube" I took 3 sticks of 2 meters in length.

To create a lightbox you will need

Whatman
Box for wires
corrugated paper
Double-sided tape
small carnations

Box ~160r, Whatman paper ~20r, Corrugated paper ~50r, Adhesive tape ~40r, carnations ~30r. Total 300r.

Light

Assembly

The boxes were cut as follows: 4 pieces of 50cm and 8 pieces of 35cm (these dimensions of the lightbox seemed to me optimal for use/storage):

In order to connect the "sticks" to each other, I used the feature of the boxes - a hollow structure:

And the joints were fixed with small carnations:

First I did the sides:

And then he again used the hollow construction of the boxes for the construction of the base:

After some time, the skeleton was ready:

After I attached the bottom and pasted the drawing paper (to get a “subject table”):

At the end, I glued corrugated paper on the sides and top of the lightbox:

Result

"Working" state of the lightbox:

Examples of received photos

For a couple of years now, my camera has been Nikon Coolpix L110 (budget hyperzoom). All photos were taken with it.

Total

It turned out to be an inexpensive, but durable lightbox, the price of which is only 300 rubles. I hope this article is useful to someone.

Good luck with your experiments!

High-quality shooting of objects is a very difficult task. We need special tables, backgrounds, sources of diffused light - softboxes.
But there is a device that makes life easier for the photographer. This is a lightcube, it is also a photobox, it is also a shadowless tent. On sale, of course, there are ready-made solutions, but the lightcube is such a thing that it is much easier to do it yourself.

Structurally, the device is a frame covered with a diffused fabric with a background inside, and illuminated by 1-3 light sources. The simplest lightcube can be made in just twenty minutes from a cardboard box and "cigarette" paper, but if you want something more solid, you will have to work hard. Fortunately, detailed instructions have been published on various photoblogs.
Most of the authors recommend making a frame from PVC "cable-channel" boxes. Ok, Bartimaeus told himself and went to the hardware store.

So in the beginning I had:
- sheet of whatman paper size A1.
- PVC box 16x16 - 4 pieces, 2 meters each;
- jointing bar 15x20mm - 6 pcs. 1.2 meters;
- spunbond, aka geotextile - 1 pack vka, 1.6 x 10 meters.

I cut 12 pieces of the box 35 cm long. In four of them I made a slot on the side, in another four I spread the "ears". Looking ahead, I note that this is a very clumsy work. The cable channel is generally not intended to create structures from it, and it does not forgive such an attitude.

To cut the box, I thought of using a garden pruner. :) And for the connection - use the Lacrysil "Cooler than nails" construction adhesive, in the hope of compensating for profile irregularities and cutting flaws. Looking ahead, I note that the hopes were justified only partially.

Nevertheless, pretty soon I became the owner of two frames 35x35 cm. It remains to connect them into a cube, with "eared" pieces.

The task turned out to be so difficult that ordinary nails had to be called in to help the liquid nails.

Nevertheless, here it is, the treasured cube! Oddly enough, the design came out relatively solid. Although unsightly. What can you do, working with a PVC box requires direct hands...

For prevention, I pasted over the corners with tape. Then I placed the background inside, and covered the cube with spunbond. By the way, calico can be used instead of geotextile, and, in principle, any white fabric, even an old shirt will do.
Who whispers "nightie" there?? Leave the audience, prankster! :))

Forgotten something? Yes, of course! The most important thing is the light!
This is how the lightcube "in combat positions" looks like. I used two table lamps for lighting. Ultraflash UF-301. These are the first pictures. As you can see, they look more than decent. Despite the fact that it was not possible to completely get rid of the shadows (the spunbond is still too thin, at least two layers are needed), the quality of the photo is an order of magnitude higher than those that I took in the light from the window.

However, when the first excitement died down, I wanted to ... make a 2.0 version. For in the process unfortunate design flaws were revealed.
I was already thinking about buying a box and connecting it correctly, cutting off all the bumps and adjusting the details as accurately as possible, when I saw THIS during another meditation in the construction market.
Remember and don't say you haven't heard! The best material for a lightcube frame is a PVC "corner" profile, white, 20*20 mm, thickness 1.5 mm. Sold in pieces of 2.7 meters, it costs a penny, in any case - cheaper than a box. And it's tough enough to make a cube even 60x60x60 cm. ...

Perfectly cut with a hacksaw...

... and no less perfectly glued! Moreover, you can even use Moment glue, it is not necessary to spend money on mounting. Frames came out in the same breath. For reliability, I fixed the gluing points with clothespins.

My lightcube 2.0 is a parallelepiped 30x35x45 cm. Looking ahead, I note that I missed a bit - the length of the module had to be 42.5-43 centimeters. Why - I will explain below.

I made another important addition to the design - I pasted an LED strip on the inner surface of the upper corner. For front lighting. I spied this decision from the Chinese from aliexpress.

Tape power - 14.4 watts / meter, with a piece length of 35 cm (these are 7 LED modules, each 5 cm) the power consumption will be 5.04 watts, with a supply voltage of 12 volts, the current will be 420 milliamps. That allows you to use a conventional 12 V DC unit with a current of 500-700 mA for powering!

While the glue dries, you can build diffusers. According to the new concept, they should be removable. I made 2 subframes from a jointing bar. 30x35 cm and 1 piece - 35x45cm. On the sides I pulled the PONGS ceiling fabric, and on the top - two layers of spunbond. For fastening, I used power buttons with caps, but regular ones will do.

Now someone will ask why it was impossible to build the entire frame from a bar, why this foppishness with a corner and overhead diffusers? I answer: this requires not only elementary carpentry skills, but also a carpentry workbench or at least a normal work bench with a vise. Sawing a bar "on the knee" is a bad idea, and assembling a frame "on weight" from pieces is even worse.

As you can see, this time all efforts paid off. A piece of drawing paper lay inside like a glove, if my photo box was shorter, 43 centimeters, then I could easily use the ready-made A2 format. The ceiling fabric diffuses the light well, despite the fact that I screwed powerful Gauss 15W bulbs, 1400 lumens each, into the "tabletops". For the top lighting, I used a clothespin lamp"Svetkomplekt" E50N with a lamp of 590 lumens, although a regular cartridge on a tripod will do.As you can see, the results have been achieved. Highlights and shadows are gone, the only thing that needs to be worked on is white balance correction, but that's another topic.

A visual demonstration of the results of backlighting with LED strip. The option "without illumination" is on the left. As you can see, the result is very much worth a couple of extra rubles spent on the tape and the block.

The frame and diffusers cost about 7 rubles new, and I gave half the amount for glue. Another 5 rubles had to be paid for the LED strip, it is sold by the meter. I don’t take into account the power supply, there is a run-up on them.

Summary. Lightcube is an effective tool for a subject photographer. It is easy and simple to make it with your own hands, the main thing is to determine the dimensions and choose the right material for the frame.

P.S. It remains to wait until Santa Claus brings me an "adult" camera, and I can try my hand at photo stocks...
P.P.S. The original article was originally posted on the Otzovik website, but due to the policy of the administration, it had to be moved here.