So I have started anew photography course recently which a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of, and I figured it would be a good way to challenge myself into trying all sorts of different things and picking up a few new skills. Anyway, for assignment 1, I figured I would have a crack at product photography as Its something I have been interested in for a while but never really had a reason to try. Problem with doing products is that professional lighting is very expensive, and I don't want to invest in a few hundred dollars worth of flash kit.
I saw a video on youtube a while back and figured I would have a crack at building my own budget lightbox, which is sort of like a mini studio, and I thought it would be a good chance to kill two birds with one stone. So here are a few pictures from my build, oh and the whole lot cost a grand total of $25! Also, you don't need a very good camera for this to work, it will massively improve your pictures even if you are using a mobile phone to take them.
Cardboard box from my our food shop, white cardboard, tissue paper, ruler craft knife and masking tape.
Start cutting out holes in the sides and top for lighting.
Add some tissue paper to create a budget light diffuser.
Start lining the edges with white cardboard. Turns out an Iphone on torch mode makes for great lighting!
Nearly done. Important to add a curve to the back wall so as to avoid any nasty edges in the end pictures.
Important to keep the camera on a tripod to make sure everything lines up! Also it allows for pin sharp focusing on the images with lovely soft lighting from the iphone and tissue paper. Selecting a low F number can also create great depth of field effects for more drama. Master Chief is on modelling duty for this one!
And the end result! Pretty damn happy with my $25 studio! Just need to find some more interesting things to take some pictures of now.
