homemade softbox-vs-commercial light tent

[anthony_wright]

Hi, Im a amateur looking to start taking pictures of jewlery and

other things. I am thinking about buying a light tent, but have read

some info about creating my own. I would like to know if making my

own softbox would be more economical, and would it produce results

just as good as those when using an ez cube or etc.. I have a nikon

n75 with a 4.5-5.6g 28-80mm, 70-300mm 4.5-5.6d/ed and a 50/1.8 lens.

I also have a sb-600 flash. is there any other equipment that you

could suggest ie.. websites, lens lighting or background,

I have a budget of $300

thanks

 

Anthony

[jmf]

In general, it's not rocket science, and most white translucent materials will do. The only problem is that not everything that looks white actually transmits white. If you include a gray card, you can make adjustments or the lab can provided you shoot negs. Photoflex has some free web lessons that may help

[scott_walton2]

The best and easiest (best is a relative term because it will show ALL the defects in the jewelry!!!) is to suspend a large piece of foamcore (white and a little more than being horizontal to the table) over your tabletop setup... about 2-3 ft above. Bounce your flash off of the foamcore to light your product. By placing your flash in different positions (i.e. at the rear of the setup-just out of camera view, or 45 degrees from camera or even just under your camera pointed at the foamcore...) you will be able to get different looks through lighting.

As a background, get some "river rocks" or rocks from the ocean, spray paint them black and put them ontop of black seamless paper. Drape your jewelry artfully over the rocks.

You can easily make a light box out of foam core, you might consider Gatorfoam as it is more rigid. Cover the end with Translum and you have a softbox.

[mukul_dube]

Here's something tailor-made, literally. I used thin white fabric in the form of a skirt, base diameter around 4 feet, height 6 feet or so, top (waist) tied up. The whole thing hung over my working surface and its bottom went well below that surface so that I could raise my camera when needed. The lens was poked through a round hole cut in the side. I used natural light from a window, with two pieces of mounting board to balance it. Flash, preferably diffused and bounced off something, is an obvious possibility. One difficulty with shiny metallic surfaces is overly reflective "hot spots". The old trick is to dull them by gently pressing a lump of plasticine against them.