Passion for photography is quite an expensive pleasure. has always been in demand, for example, in photobanks, and is also relevant for those who are fond of handmade and want to show their work in all its glory. For high-quality product shooting, you need a lightbox, which is easy to make with your own hands.

Lightbox mixes and scatters directional light, which is formed by lighting devices, creating a shadowless pattern of the object and focusing the viewer's attention directly on the object. Its purpose is quite clear, and the do-it-yourself manufacturing process is quite simple and takes no more than half an hour.

To make a lightbox, we need:

• cardboard box
• paper sheet (size depends on the size of the box)
• scotch
• glue (pencil or PVA)
• ruler
• paper knife and scissors
• flipchart paper
• 2 clothespins
• 2 energy-saving lamps white light

Making a lightbox with your own hands

We take a cardboard box. The size depends on the items you will be photographing in the lightbox.

Cut off the excess with scissors and a clerical knife.

We have such a design.

Cut off the paper if it is too big for the box.

After making sure that the power buttons do not hold the drawing paper well, we decided to use glue and adhesive tape, despite the fact that the structure cannot be disassembled.

We fix whatman paper on any glue, or with adhesive tape.

The design is already becoming like a lightbox.

Cut paper for flipchart. It is thin enough to let light through.

Advice: You can use any light-diffusing material, such as a tablecloth.

We cover the slots in the box with it.

You can use ordinary clothespin lamps by purchasing energy-saving white light bulbs for them.

You can also use household halogen spotlights. But if the lightbox is small, table lamps with a flexible stem will suffice.

Keep in mind that halogen spotlights heat up quickly, you can burn your hands or burn your apartment down. Therefore, do not leave them on for a long time.

Now you can start shooting subject matter. The result of our efforts:

Good day.
Sooner or later, every photographer wants to maximize the quality of their photos. Of course, there are many ways to achieve excellent photo quality. This is the correct placement of light lighting on the sides of the object, the use of beautiful backgrounds, as well as processing in Photoshop.

You can of course use professional equipment, but this can only justify itself if you are a professional photographer, and this is the main income, then you can already create such a photo studio. But of course, at home, more compact shooting equipment is required.
Just such devices include a photobox or lightbox (as you like to call it).
The convenience of its use is precisely due to mobility and saving "paper" in your wallet. It does not require a lot of space, and with minimal lighting it makes it possible to get exactly high-quality photos, with uniform illumination of the object. You can choose absolutely any background, or vice versa, take a picture of an object without a background, without resorting to Photoshop to decolorize the background.
On sale there is a large selection of ready-made photo boxes, but the price for them is high. And many are interested in how to make such a photobox with minimal cost. I will talk about this in today's review.

To create a frame, you can use various materials, the choice is yours:

1. Metal construction. On sale you can freely find profiles for the manufacture of mosquito nets, there are several types and sizes.

To assemble such a frame, you will need plastic corners to connect the profiles. Corners are also sold individually according to the size for the profile.

2. Wooden slats. Everything is simple here, cut it off, put it together, it's ready.

3. Cardboard frame. We take an ordinary box, for example, from under the TV, cut out the windows.

4. Plastic (PVC) water pipes. I chose them for the manufacture of the frame.

Which pipe diameter to use is decided individually, I chose 20mm. You also need to decide at once what maximum size you want a photobox. I made the length of the pipe segment 50 cm.

So, the list required for the manufacture of photoboxes:
1. Plastic (PVC) pipes - 6 meters. (12 pieces of 50 cm.)
2. Connectors (PVC adapters) for pipes - 8 corner pieces, 4 straight pieces. (if there are two-plane tees in the store, then there are 8 of them)
3. Plug - 1 piece.
4. Bulb holder - 1 piece.
5. The switch on a wire for a sconce - 1 piece.
6. Electrical cable 2x0.5 - 5 meters (footage optional)
7. LED bulb.
8. Plafond.
9. White fabric.

Photos required:

The fabric I used is satin, which has been lying around since the days of the USSR. The plafond, also from that era, was available.
If, however, you do not have a ceiling, then it is quite possible to make it using Penofol.
It is a heat insulating material and has a reflective surface just right for amplifying light. The stores have a choice of thickness, and are inexpensive. A piece of penofol can simply be rolled up with a cone, fixed, and the ceiling is ready.

So, let's start assembling.
To reflect the light inside the ceiling, I used ordinary foil ... yes, yes, also from the era of the USSR. There were good times, there are so many useful things left ...)

I think it will not cause any difficulties in connecting the cable, but just in case I will show it. All the same, a step-by-step review.

Let's disassemble the switch.

We measure the distance on the cable to the place where the switch will be located. To put the switch on the cable, you do not need to cut the cable completely in half. It is enough to rip open his belly (like cutting a fish), get one wire and cut it and strip the ends, connect it to the switch. And lay the rest inside on the opposite side in the groove.

Everything, the switch is ready.

Now we connect the wire to the plug and cartridge.

Of course, lighting cannot work without the main source of light - light bulbs.
There is a huge selection of light bulbs on sale, conventional, halogen, LED, etc. Ordinary incandescent bulbs do not fit well, are not bright enough and the light is far from daylight. Halogens are bright, but they also emit a lot of heat, and they must also be handled very carefully, you can’t touch them with open hands, and besides, they have a short working life.
But LED lamps are just very suitable for lighting a photobox. Bright, even light, low power consumption, very little heat during operation, unpretentious in use.
My choice fell on the Supra SL-LED-PR-A60-10W/4000/E27 cold light LED lamp.

The lamp has good declared technical characteristics:
Consumption - 10 W
Luminous flux - 850 lm
Color temperature - 4000K
The manufacturer promises a lamp life of 30,000 hours, almost 3.5 years. I note that the lamp really shines with a very bright, even light, the lighting is obtained almost like during the day, it does not change the color of the object when shooting.
The flask has a matte finish.

There are usage restrictions LED lamps. The manufacturer indicates this on the box.

We insert the light bulb into the cartridge, and check the resulting product for operability.

Everything works great. I will warn you right away, I do not recommend looking directly at the light from the resulting lamp, it is very bright, and of course you should not direct it at others and animals. As welders say, you can "catch a bunny." I accidentally looked and caught such a "bunny".)

Now let's move on to the assembly of the frame.
When I bought pipes in the store, there were no two-plane tees in stock:

Therefore, angular and straight adapters were bought in order to later make tees out of them.
First you need to connect the angled and straight pipe adapters so that there is a possibility of a three-sided connection of the pipes themselves. This is done very simply. Straight adapters are long and need to be cut in half. There are special scissors for cutting PVC pipes, but it makes no sense to buy them for one-time work. Enough to do with a regular hacksaw. Not suitable for metal, you will cut for a long time. But with teeth a little more than for metal, designed for sawing wood, just right.

Having cut straight adapters, we proceed to the process of fixing them on the corner ones. To do this, it is necessary to heat the place of the cut of the straight adapter over the gas burner so that it begins to melt, and then press it tightly with force to the center of the corner adapter. Until it cools down, it is not necessary to stir it up so that the parts are well welded to each other. After such a "welded" work, we get 8 tees for connecting pipes.

Now we are engaged in the pipes themselves. For them, I chose a length of 50 cm. Since the pipes initially involve hot welding with adapters, they simply cannot be inserted into the adapters, the pipe diameter is slightly larger than the adapter hole. Of course, you can cut the thickness, sand, etc., but again, everything is much easier using a gas burner.
We heat the end of the pipe by constantly turning it over the gas, you don’t need to wait for reflow !, just warm it up. And then we insert, pressing with force and constantly scrolling the pipe, into the adapter. You need to scroll so that the pipe does not weld with the adapter, to obtain a collapsible design.
As a result, it turns out like this.

If you notice, then the length of the section where the thickness of the pipe is removed is different for the two pipes.
Here I will focus your attention so that you do not make mistakes!
In angular and straight adapters, the inner diameter and length of the pipe entry to the stop are different. Therefore, it is imperative that four pipes, after heating, be inserted into straight adapters, and the other eight into the corner ones.

Now we just put everything together, and we get such a frame.

We make a fabric cover according to the size of the frame so that the cover is put on with effort, and the fabric does not sag much on the sides.
And that's it, the photobox is ready.

Inside the box, you can use a different background. The store has a huge selection of decorative plastic panels. I bought a couple of these panels to try. One such panel costs 130 rubles. For shooting without a background, an ordinary drawing paper is suitable, or you can also take a plastic panel, but pure white.

Well, the level of lighting and the arrangement of light are selected by trial and error.))) If necessary, you can add lighting on the sides of the box, this is an individual choice for everyone.

And of course I will show the result of these efforts, a few photos on a different background.

No background, paper.

As you can see, the photos are of good quality, with uniform lighting. I was very pleased with the result of making such a photobox. It was worth it, and it doesn't take much time either.
And now for the cost of everything:
Pipes and adapters - 240 rubles.
Plug, cartridge, switch - 112 rubles.
Cable - 41 rubles.
LED bulb - 300 rubles.
Fabric and ceiling were, but their cost is not high.
Total - 693 rubles.
I think it's generally very inexpensive. I also forgot to point out that for the convenience of shooting, I purchased an inexpensive tripod that will help to avoid unnecessary twitching / shaking of the camera when shooting an object. The price is only 300 rubles.
Made from metal. The maximum load on this tripod is 800 grams, which is quite suitable for small cameras. It is stable on the surface, the legs are adjustable in height. When assembled, only 15.5 cm long and 3 cm wide, weight - 115 grams.

Greetings to all who visit.

Today I will tell you about such an interesting thing as lightbox.

For professional photographer such a thing is indispensable and necessary. I am not like that, but I will clearly show and tell how our friendship with him is going on and what difficulties you may encounter.

Most of the reviewers praise the lightbox, but I will show the other side, especially since I had time to get to know all the subtleties.

If you do not need details, immediately scroll to the very end.

GENERAL INFORMATION

I guess I'll leave the original description of the product:

Portable mini photography lightbox to help you shoot high quality Images.
Magnetic structure, easy for you to assemble.
Super bright LED beads, provide medium light for your product.
Foldable design, easy for you to store and carry Oh.
Comes with 2 backgrounds (white and black) to suit your needs better.
Ideal for you to shoot for small products.

The size: 22.6*23*24 cm.

Price: 475 rub.

WHAT IS A LIGHTBOX

Since I unpacked the box a long time ago, I won’t be able to show this design, which I barely laid out. It was too hard to put everything together. And then I had to suffer with the correct bending of all the edges of the box.

The lightbox ended up looking like this:

There is nothing remarkable on the back side, no holes for a photo.

The top also has no slits.

Therefore, a photo exactly from above will not work in any way, otherwise you will simply block out the light and create a shadow. You will have to suffer choosing a good angle.

Side view.

The walls are attached to each other on a magnet.

LED bulbs are glued on top.

True, on the one hand they are already slightly moving away.

And this is how they glow beautifully:

It seems that now you get a MASTERPIECE!

Illumination occurs by connecting one side of the cord to the lightbox:

And the other side to any USB port:

There is no plug included, just a cable. But the connectors are pretty standard and if anything, you can find such a cord at home. I put it in the charger from under the phone. The cord is quite short.

About compactness and lightness I want to immediately unsubscribe my dissatisfaction.

It may be convenient for someone to fold and carry the lightbox with them, but I took a long time to try to fold it in order to take a photo for a review in order to show its compactness.

Yes, it is compact, but if you do not clamp it with something, then the photobox unfolds. And attempts to collect how it was complicated initially were unsuccessful.

Lightbox material is thin plastic.

Design Flimsy, but holds up. True, sometimes it can mow a little to the side or the walls cling to the center. Therefore, in order not to destroy its shape, I am afraid to fold it.

Comes with 2 background misunderstandings: black and white. They are soft, foamy, absolutely glare-free (which is very good).

White background:

Since the material is not glossy, if you stain the white background, then the traces will remain there forever. And it is very easy to get it dirty, you don’t even have to make an effort.

Especially if you photograph cosmetics and demonstrate its structure.

This is what it looks like Black background:

But on closer inspection, it's not all that black.

I can’t say that I was very mocked by the black background, I photographed on it very rarely. An example from an early photo on a black background can be seen in the review of the remedy for thrush. Here I just used one background, no lightbox.

If you take macro shots, then all the shortcomings of the black background are striking.

Over time, the fold of the background becomes noticeable.

Fastening backgrounds to the lightbox with special hooks and holes.

From the side, the workspace looks like this:

But even from afar, all the flaws in the background are visible.

HOW POINTS SHOOTING USING A LIGHTBOX

In order to photograph an object in this device, sometimes it takes a very long time.

Example No. 1: "Choosing the correct position of the object."

I want to take a picture of this item:

If you put the pyramid closer to the edge, then the consecration is not what you wanted.

Everything seems to be fine, but a shadow is visible.

Then I move the pyramid around the perimeter of the lightbox many times and look for a good shot.

There is no shadow, but the lighting is dimmer.

In addition to all the problems, I still suffer with the camera settings. In a situation with photographing on a phone, the situation is sharply limited by the lack of settings, and then you have to adapt to the lighting of the box.

Example No. 2: "Photographing the text."

We take a bottle of coconut oil and put it in a lightbox.

Color rendition on a white background is good. In general, the glare is small, the lighting is normal.

But in order for the text to be readable, you need to better adapt to the available lighting and play with the location of the bottle. The result is a readable inscription.

I don’t know how and I don’t know how to beautifully arrange a photo on a white background. And in the end, I take my photophone, purchased at the scrapbooking store, and take this photo:

In this case, I photographed during the day on the windowsill without a flash. But when processing the photo, I added a little more highlights, because a bottle of coconut oil is supposedly sunbathing on the beach.

The absence of walls on all sides gives more room for creativity.

And here you need to insert a quote from the great blochers:

And which option do you like, write in the comments under this post.

Example #3: "Choose the right lightbox size".

How wrong was I to take such a small box. It looks like it's roomy.

But we do not need extraneous details in the frame to be visible. Therefore, I bring the camera lens as close as possible and get this:

Then I cut and plan for a long time to get rid of the excess. But in such a modest size it is more difficult to catch the light of a large object.

Example #4: "A clash of lightbox, window sill and table."

• Photo taken in lightbox:

In this case, not just highlights are visible, but also my chandelier on the bottle.

Therefore, if you shoot in a hot summer in an unusable form, then pay attention to the reflection, otherwise surprises may await you later.

• Photo on the windowsill with flash:

• Photo on the windowsill without flash:

The photo was taken in gloomy weather. In this embodiment, the reflection of light from the window may also be present.

Another nuance of shooting on the windowsill is the location of the subject. If positioned like this, the light will fall from above and illuminate the entire object:

View from afar of the photo studio "Podokonnik"

If you put a butt, then you need a background from behind, or the whole composition can be turned sideways to the light.

In the version of the photo on the table, there are more opportunities to choose the angle and minimize glare. With limited space in the box, it's more difficult.

Example 5: "Trying to reproduce the original color of an item"

My phone is a rather unusual color and I wanted to convey it, as a result something like this came out:

In the same paragraph, I will add a few photos of other torments associated with the photo shoot of the phone for review:

Even with the screen turned off, the phone is difficult to position at the desired angle:

Now imagine that you need to take photos of the menu, some elements on the display, and at the same time arrange it so that the light falls as it should and everything can be seen.

And with the photo of the side buttons, it’s generally a disaster:

Here's how to cut the edges here?

In the end, I freaked out a little, wrote a review and inserted some photos from the lightbox, and used a completely different background. But that's another story .

(The originals of the torment when compiling a review have long since sunk into oblivion and I tried to reproduce how it was).

Example #6: "The story of one review. How to remove glare from a photo? How to process it? How to find the right angle to convey small details?"

Especially for this review, I decided to prepare a portfolio for the next review and show step by step how everything happens.

The essence of the review is that I am comparing CHANEL mascara, purchased in Moscow several years ago, with a fresh one purchased in Dubai. Since the state of the brush in fresh mascara seemed strange to me, and I wanted to demonstrate this clearly. And in the review I tried to find out what was wrong here.

The first step is to show a photo of the packaging. What am I worse? I also decided to take a picture of the box.

My photo maneuvers glossy packaging consisted of choosing the right position and further processing the photo.

I choose the position of the object without glare:

Processing the best result so that the white background is white:

Lightcube (Photobox, Lightbox) do-it-yourself for 300r

• DIY or DIY

Let's say you want to do high quality photos gadget for review or you are interested in subject shooting 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's this?

What for?

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 to achieve 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?

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 I have carton boxes.

Design

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:

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 their large sizes the lightbox turned out to be durable - it does not stagger and does not 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

The 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

Total

Good luck with your experiments!