A factory-made shadowless photobox is a necessary thing, but quite expensive. For us, far from professional photographers, a homemade lightcube is quite suitable, which can be made from literally anything. Among the most inexpensive and simple options– thick cardboard boxes, plastic photo frames, ceiling tiles made of polystyrene foam, PVC corners and ordinary Whatman paper.
I decided to make myself a light cube from an ordinary mesh toy basket, once bought on AliExpress at a ridiculous price. Over time, the need for such a “container” disappeared, and I simply didn’t think about what else to use it for, until the idea of making a photo box with my own hands was born. For a folding version, such a basket is an ideal basis. The work, however, is more painstaking, but the product turns out neat, light, and compact. And it takes up practically no space - you can even roll it behind the back of the sofa, or push it onto the “roof” of the closet!
Manufacturing cost and components
The total cost of a homemade lightcube did not exceed $7: the basket cost $1.5, 2 mini-lamps on clothespins cost $3.0, and a pair of 15 W LED bulbs with an initial power of 100 W cost $2.5 . Well, an old calico sheet that you don’t mind cutting can probably be found in any chest of drawers. The only tools that will be useful are thread and a needle, a sewing ripper, a soft measuring tape (“centimeter”), large pins and sharp tailor’s scissors. Now spit on your palms and let's get to work!
Making a photo box
We carefully disassemble our structure - we simply rip out the seams connecting all 4 sides of the basket. Then we remove the mesh and get light metal frames. As you noticed, these frames, after being released from the tissue, suddenly take on round shape. A surprise, of course, but quite acceptable - we will work not with ovals, but with rings.
Using a flexible “centimeter” we cover one ring and determine the length of the future binding. In my case, the perimeter was 146 cm, to which I added 4 cm for the edge hem. In total, you should get 4 bindings, one and a half meters long, and make the width a little larger than the standard one - about 3-3.5 cm.
Now we need to cut out the “cores” of these rings - 4 fabric circles that will serve as diffusers. We just measure the diameter of the rings and look for some kind of basin or other thing at home with suitable sizes. I had such a thing, it turned out to be a boil-out lid with a diameter of 47 cm. I carefully outlined it, and when cutting it out, I added 3 cm (that is, I increased the diameter to 50 cm, so that it would be enough to sew on the binding). Important: do not try to draw a circle on fabric using a compass - you will ruin the material in vain.
When all the parts are ready, we begin to process each of the rings one by one with tape. You grab the folded edges on both sides with pins - there is no point in basting with threads, because we will need to insert the cores into the binding.
This is what we will do now: take out 2-3 pins, insert the edge of the core with a margin of a couple of centimeters and baste “through and through” with white threads. We continue this way in a circle until we have processed all 4 frame rings.
The finished circles turned out very neat, right? Here, for example, is how it turned out for me: I fastened all 4 circles with ordinary office clips (binders). For clarity, I turned the structure upside down.
Now we return the box to its “natural position” and prepare it for shooting. We install a lamp opposite the side walls. If you are going to photograph on a table, the lamps can be secured with clothespins along the edge of the tabletop, but since my table is too narrow, I have to do this on the floor. And so that the lamps would not wobble because of the clothespins, I attached to them scraps from plastic window sill– it’s holding up very well, by the way!
The first shot came out so-so because it was “white on white.”
But here it’s better: everything is clearly visible, right down to the inscriptions on the bottles.
The elephant in double packaging (cellophane + organza bag) also turned out to be quite “readable”.
Note: I covered the bottom of my light box with a piece of the same sheet, but in order not to fiddle with ironing this piece every time before shooting, you can replace it with a 50-centimeter strip of whatman paper, and cover the “holes” in the corners of the structure with pieces of fabric from the outside.
And one more moment. For my purposes - photographing handicraft objects and dishes for photo recipes, this light is enough. But if you plan to shoot something small (detailed), then 15 W LED bulbs will not be enough, you will have to buy a couple of more powerful lamps. Good luck with your filming!
Many photographers, especially beginners, for some reason believe that it is possible to engage in product photography only in a good studio, and even then, if it has special equipment. But this is absolutely not true. They are deeply mistaken. Even at home, you can perfectly organize a small photo studio in order to photograph objects. This is exactly what our article today is dedicated to.
So let's get started.
Stage number one. Equipment we will need
Option one. Creating a stage
This option is probably one of the simplest. It is well suited for photographing small objects and even still life photography. It’s not at all difficult to build such a home object table. Any photographer can do this, even a beginner and inexperienced one. To do this we need a sheet of white cardboard enough large sizes, approximately like a sheet of Whatman paper. We will also need a support for our stage. Anything can serve as such a support: for example, some big thick book, some dishware, a children's toy, or even an old shoe or felt boot. All the same, this support will not be visible in the frame; it will remain outside its boundaries.
It is best to organize such an impromptu place for subject photography on the wide windowsill of your home. It is very important to pay attention to sunlight. If the subject you are photographing happens to be in a band or patch of bright sunlight, it will cast deep, rough, dark, and unsightly shadows on the walls of your stage. And this, you understand, will not decorate your photo at all, desired result you won't get it. It is for this reason that it is best to arrange a subject table on a window facing shadow side. Or, as a last resort, wait for another time to work, such that the sun goes to the other side of your house.
Option 2. Homemade photo box for product photography
Modern special photo boxes for product photography are quite expensive, and buying them for one-time work at home makes absolutely no sense. Let's try to make such a photo box with our own hands from what can be found in every home. Well, at least from an ordinary cardboard box and a sheet of Whatman paper. In this photo you see one of the options for making such a homemade photo box.
Some amateur photographers manage to build similar photo boxes right on their computer desk. They do it all from the same sheet of Whatman paper. True, to work with such a photobox you will need quite a lot of lighting devices.
Option 3. Just a background
In some cases, it is possible to photograph objects, especially small ones, not on the windowsill. It’s not even necessary to build a stage or photobox. You can do without them. Some Photographers do it much simpler. To do this, you need to choose the brightest corner in your room, or at least a well-lit section of the wall. If the wall in your room is not a single color, then you need to hang a background on it. The same sheet of whatman paper or a piece of fabric can serve as such a background. suitable color. The object that you decide to photograph must be placed on a stool. This stool, you understand, needs to be covered with the same material from which you made the background for shooting your subject.
I would like to give one more clean practical advice. If you decide to photograph jewelry at home, for example, your wife’s favorite ring or her most beautiful earrings, these items can be placed on a polished granite tile for shooting. The reflective surface of this noble stone will further highlight the beauty of the jewelry itself.
Stage number two. We organize lighting
Lighting for home subject photography primarily depends on what equipment you will use for shooting. If you decide to photograph objects on a window, your main light source in this case will naturally be sunlight. A reflector can be used as an additional light source. It is also very easy to make yourself from cardboard and foil. As a last resort, for this purpose - illuminating an object with reflected light - you can simply use a sheet of ordinary A4 writing paper, or cardboard. Any light surface can serve as a reflector. Even an ordinary newspaper or... a friend in a white T-shirt.
If you decide to use a homemade photo box for product photography, you will need at least three light sources. These sources will illuminate your subject through the walls of the photo box from the top and sides. This will help you create very good lighting in your photo without harsh or harsh shadows. In some cases, if you try hard enough, shadows can be avoided altogether. As such light sources, you can use table lamps or any other lamps that you can easily find in every home.
Stage number 3. Photographic equipment necessary for product photography
In order for your pictures to turn out clear and sharp, and this in product photography is, you see, very important, you must use a tripod. This simple accessory will allow you to avoid camera vibration when shooting at long shutter speeds. As a last resort, the camera can be mounted on some fixed support. You will also need a remote control remote control camera, or at worst, a cable in order to release the shutter without contact.
Stage number 4. The subject photography process
Well, we have everything prepared to start work. Now we need to beautifully arrange the subject that we will photograph on our improvised mini-film set, in other words, shoot into a beautiful composition of the future photograph. Also at this stage you need to set up the camera correctly.
Naturally, subject photography is best done in manual mode. If you take photographs in automatic mode, exposure errors are most often inevitable. Especially if you are shooting an object that is bright in color and placing it on a dark or even black background. It is also important to correctly set the white balance and light sensitivity of the matrix. The ISO value should be no more than 200 units. How less value ISO, the less noise there will be in your image. In product photography this is also important. After all, the subject should be shown in the photograph as natural as possible.
Don't forget to turn off the flash on your camera. In order to get a high-quality photograph of an object, light from a window or a table lamp will be quite enough.
Well, it's time to take the first test shot. Look at it carefully and analyze the result of your work. If you see exposure errors, unclear sharpness, lighting, or anything else in your photo, correct all these flaws by changing the camera settings or lighting scheme and shoot again. And if everything turned out well, as you planned, feel free to continue working. Everything should work out for you.
Lightcube (light from English “light”) or as it is called lightbox (lightbox), is intended for shadowless subject photography. Widely used in photo studios to create high-quality photographs of objects with close range. This kind of photography is well suited for photographing goods from online stores, photo-video chronology of actions when preparing master classes.
In a lightbox (photobox), objects are well illuminated from all sides, which allows you to achieve good quality photos even when shooting on a budget digital camera or telephone. With this type of photography, it becomes possible to eliminate the presence of a shadow from an object in a photograph or make it almost invisible. In such devices photographs are taken as jewelry, as well as interior items of impressive size, which are then placed in catalogues, booklets and magazines.
In today's master class on creating a home mini photo studio, I will show you how to make a collapsible lightbox (photobox) with your own hands for shadowless subject photography. You can easily find materials for its manufacture in a hardware store or hardware store, as well as in a fabric store.
For the lightbox we need:
- wooden slats;
- white lining fabric;
- PVA glue and push pins;
- screws, wing nut (nut with lugs);
- small nails.
Tools you will need:
- drill or screwdriver;
- wood hacksaw;
- pencil, tape measure and square.
We will also need to find or purchase bright white lamps and lamps for them.
Let's do the first thing wooden slats. We will need 12 slats, each 50 cm long. Next, we apply markings to our tongue-and-groove slats, as shown in the figure (stepping back 1 cm from the edge and marking our segment into 3 equal squares). We apply the same markings to both ends of each rail. To make a tongue-and-groove connection on 4 slats, mark the middle square with a cross, and on the remaining 4 slats, mark the outer squares with a cross. We do not touch the last 4 slats; they will be needed later to connect our lightbox.
Using a hacksaw, cut out the squares marked with a cross. We connect the finished blanks together at right angles into a frame. If necessary, we customize each connection individually. Thus, we get two square frames.
Now we cut out 8 triangles from the timber to strengthen the connections of our slats. Using PVA glue we glue our triangles, additionally securing each with two nails. Our frames are almost ready.
If the tongue-and-groove connection is not adjusted correctly, gaps may appear that can be filled by mixing sawdust and PVA glue.
We mark and drill two holes for each rail, and don’t forget to make holes on the frames. All that remains is to clean the frames with sandpaper and cover them with white paint. We leave our frames until the paint is completely dry and start working on the lining fabric.
Let's prepare two canvases measuring 50x50 cm, they will be needed for attaching to frames, and one long canvas 150x50 cm. First, let's put the sections of the long fabric in order. Fold the edges twice and iron them. Let's sew it on a machine. If necessary, we will iron our fabrics.
The paint has completely dried and you can continue working with the frames.
We will attach two pieces of fabric 50x50 cm to the frames. To do this, we will use push pins. We stretch the fabric and fasten it to the frame with buttons. I decided not to fix the long canvas on the removable elements of the cube.
Let's assemble our cube. We insert screws into the holes of the frames and use wing nuts to connect the four slats.
All that remains is to find lighting fixtures. We insert powerful lamps into the lamps and place them on all sides of the cube, thereby illuminating the cube. I only had one good lamp and desk lamp, this was enough to take good pictures without using a flash.
The subject for photography was my collection of my favorite Volkswagen Transporter T1 cars.
For the background, you can use fabric of any color, but keep in mind that it should transmit light in the same way as the lining fabric.
About the Author:
Greetings, dear readers! My name is Maxim. I am convinced that almost everything can be done at home with your own hands, I am sure that everyone can do it! IN free time I love making things and creating something new for myself and my loved ones. You will learn about this and much more in my articles!
When I started writing my first reviews, and this was more than 4 years ago, I immediately ran into a problem with the quality of the photos. There was a catastrophic lack of light at home for them - my window arrangement is such that there is little light before lunch, and after lunch the sun shines directly into the windows. The problem became especially acute in winter, when there is little light outside during the day, but indoors it’s generally the same... Then I made my first lightbox with my own hands, which I improved several more times. But he came to an end long ago and I chose a replacement for him. This lightbox can help with several issues at once - good clear photos in sufficient lighting and various backgrounds - substrates. In general, if you are interested, go to the cat, at the same time I will show you my homemade monster :))
For a moment of humor, I suggest you look at my first homemade lightbox. To make it, I used a box from a water heater, cutting out one of the sides, leaving a small canopy to cover the lamp. Don’t judge the quality of the photo, because I took photos on an ancient smartphone for a long time, it’s good that the photos were preserved at all. 
Then I bought a fluorescent lamp. Took it maximum power what I found. 
Well, I screwed the lamp to the top part using nuts. The cardboard is thick, so everything was held securely. In addition, I made holes in different places so that the lamp could be rearranged different places, avoiding glare and reflections. For the background I usually used white Whatman paper. This is what the finished structure looked like. 
Of course, it improved the photo quality, but not much. There was not enough light, ideally there should be 3 light sources, i.e. 2 more on the sides. Over time, I refined this question as well. But my miracle design had several drawbacks: firstly, it turned out to be quite bulky and did not fold. And secondly, over time it simply rotted because it was stored on the balcony))
Well, now we come to the hero of the review. I received something in a small bag, at first I even thought that the Chinese had made a mistake. 
But when I opened it, I realized that everything was in order. They somehow stuffed the lightbox into a small purse. As soon as I pulled it out and pulled the edge, this entire structure (like inflatable boats in a cartoon) began to rapidly unfold and increase in size. I was a little freaked out by what was happening. I never managed to put it back into its original state! The most I could achieve was a flat surface, in this form you can easily hide it behind the sofa. 
For comparison - with a handbag where everything was stored. 
In addition, the bag contained 4 more fabrics - substrates. 
The fabric is double-sided, with a different texture on each side. On the one hand, something like suede, on the other, more glossy. There is Velcro in the corners to glue inside the cube. 
The fabrics, of course, have wrinkles at the folds, so everything had to be ironed before use.
The cube when unfolded is quite voluminous. This photo clearly shows the dimensions in comparison with the washing machine. At that time my wife just passed by and said that I bought a laundry basket that was too big :) 
Dimensions: 60x60x60 cm. There are also smaller ones, for example 40x40x40 cm and larger - 90x90x90 cm. For my purposes it seemed to me optimal size This is exactly the one I made the right decision.
As you can see, the fabric of the cube is all wrinkled, but this is absolutely not important, because it will not be visible in the photo. Its main purpose is to transmit light through itself, making it soft and scattering it.
There is quite a lot of space inside. 
You can completely close the cube, leaving only a small cutout for photos. 
Using Velcro, we attach the fabric - the backing. 
Done, you can take photos. I have not yet solved the problem with the light; before, my lamps were attached to cardboard, but now I need to think about tripods or other mounting options. When finished it should look like this: 
So far I have only one source - from the top; I haven’t figured out how to secure the side ones. I don't have many table lamps. But even this turns out pretty well. Here is a small example photo from lightcube. 
The product was provided for writing a review by the store. The review was published in accordance with clause 18 of the Site Rules.
I'm planning to buy +27 Add to favorites I liked the review +31 +48For shooting at home, a home mini photo studio can be very useful. This wonderful thing will be very useful for any photographers, both beginners and more advanced, for shooting all possible small objects, food, when you shoot in macro mode. Once you find out the cost of such a photo studio in a store, you are unlikely to want to buy it, but after analyzing the macrobox itself, you can make it yourself.
Required materials
Here is a list of materials you will need when creating a macro camera housing:
1) Box. The box can be of absolutely any size, the main thing is to take the one that would be more convenient for you to work with, and also think about the size of the things that you want to photograph in it. like this cardboard box you can simply ask in one of the grocery stores, or find a box at home left over from purchased office equipment. If you try really hard, you can make it yourself, not from cardboard, but from chipboard, it will be more reliable and will last longer.
2) Textile. It can be any fabric. The example used plain white fabric, which can be purchased at any craft store.
3) Adhesive tape. Adhesive tape, or adhesive tape, is needed if you want to try taking photographs with different backgrounds, so you can always replace the fabric with another one, if your plans do not include all possible experiments with backgrounds, then you can attach the fabric to something more durable, for example, on furniture clips or glue.
4) Glue. Glue will be needed to glue the bottom of the box.
5) Sheet of paper. This sheet will be placed on the back wall of the box in a semicircle and will serve as the main background. The paper should be relatively thick, but not so thick that wrinkles and cracks appear when bent. You can buy several sheets at once, different colors in a regular art store.
6) Lighting. For the normal operation of your photo studio, you need to organize proper lighting for it. Without it, you won't get the image you want. A table lamp with a fluorescent light bulb is suitable as a lighting device.
7) Other materials. To work you will need scissors, a ruler and a pencil.
Macro box manufacturing process
Now that you have everything necessary materials, you can start working.
Step 1. Take a box, pencil and ruler. Mark with a pencil the points on the box that will become its boundaries, then draw lines with a ruler. The boundaries are outlined.
Step 2. Cut out the excess, strictly following the outlined lines, so that you get a box with windows. Leave one side untouched - this is the bottom of the box.
Step 3. Take the paper prepared for the background and adjust it to the size of the box, insert it into the inside of the box and secure it. Remember, the length of the paper must be greater than the height of the macrobox.
Step 4. Take the fabric and cut out rectangles from it, such that they could cover the windows in your photo box. Adhere this fabric using duct tape. Your task is to cover three side holes and one top hole with fabric.
Ready!
Well, congratulations, your photobox for product and macro photography is ready. Take photos for your own pleasure.
Process of working with macrobox.
There are many options for how to use a photobox for product photography. If you have unwanted shadows, illuminate with an additional flashlight from the desired side. If you want to achieve a vignetting effect, place the lens as far into the box as possible. You can always come up with something new, play with lighting and backgrounds.
