arfink Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 I'm fairly n00bish about taking photos, but I want to take some good ones. I am attempting to photograph small objects on a white backdrop with very even illumination and few shadows. I suspect I will need to cobble together some kind of light box for this purpose. Can anyone suggest some simple tutorials for building such a thing, or give tips on camera settings that will help? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnightofChrist Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnneLine Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 (edited) That is cool Knight! I'm always into cheap & good!!!!! ARFink, you might also want to see if there is anything on [url="http://www.lynda.com"]www.lynda.com[/url] that could be helpful... .they have lots of tutorials on getting better at photography (and other things!), and you can sign up for just one month (or find a friend who can share a subscription with you.....) Edited October 6, 2012 by AnneLine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arfink Posted October 6, 2012 Author Share Posted October 6, 2012 Well, I decided to try poking around on Instructables, and looked at the one that Knight posted, and realised this was about as easy as could be. I grabbed a USPS priority box that was under my desk, a white dish towel, some printer paper, and some scotch tape, and got to work. I made this: [img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ZblFROB_A28/UHCChrfsFNI/AAAAAAAAEJs/ufpSZ8WldyU/s800/IMG_3046.JPG[/img] It works fairly well for a $0 tool. Nice and bright in there with some good lamps shining on it, or the sun. Now, I only had my 40watt tungsten desk lamp and a 5watt LED "cool white" desk lamp to work with, because the sun is being stubborn and clouded today. Not the brightest light sources, and tungsten is always a problem because of how yellow-orange the light winds up looking. So then after I took a couple shots I dragged them into GIMP to try color correcting them. After an hour of messing around I discovered the "white balance" controls, and produced the following halfway-corrected images to show how much the software helps. [img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-iKHKbICGZz4/UHCCkFX5YYI/AAAAAAAAEJ8/CxCJtscjGfs/s800/IMG_3047.JPG[/img] [img]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-XBWmzuBL8ys/UHCCjKFOK8I/AAAAAAAAEJ0/gWsws_pBhfU/s800/IMG_3048.JPG[/img] [img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-tr_2cCg0LeE/UHCCk2WsLHI/AAAAAAAAEKE/8MqsvhP94eo/s800/IMG_3050.JPG[/img] And then just for fun I took a picture of something that was really hard to get a good shot of: a small glass bottle. It turned out OK. [img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-S9LVG-bLkV0/UHCCl4jQPeI/AAAAAAAAEKM/-H7n6XzYcVY/s800/IMG_3053.JPG[/img] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnneLine Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Wow. Nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groo the Wanderer Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 all that to take a picture of an olive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnneLine Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 (edited) I thought it was a hazelnut, and the docking port for a ship-in-a-bottle, myself.... [img]http://www.mosaictelecom.com/~jfox3/Newsboy%20bottle%2001.jpg[/img] Edited October 7, 2012 by AnneLine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel's angel Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 I'm not sure if you still want tips, but I would recommend (if you can) shooting in RAW - it will give you much more scope when editing your images than jpeg, and you don't need to worry about setting your white balance in-camera. As for the lightbox issue, have a look at this video - the digitalrev guys can talk a lot of nonsense, but the lightbox they made was decent : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk5hHNsAcec Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnightofChrist Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 Cool! I used the same thing for some product shots I needed for a commercial I produced. Worked nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Groo the Wanderer Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 ah. hazelnut. makes more sense now. thought it was a weird-looking olive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winchester Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 Carry your camera at all times, in case you run into Jana Pallaske. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roamin Catholic Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 step # 1-Ignore anything Knight of Christ has to say step# 2-Repeat tip #1 step# 3- Drink lots of booze and repeat steps 1 and 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roamin Catholic Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 [quote name='KnightofChrist' timestamp='1349571349' post='2490805'] Cool! I used the same thing for some product shots I needed for a commercial I produced. Worked nice. [/quote] For some reason, this comes to mind [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4-e4nlfdRI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4-e4nlfdRI[/url] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnightofChrist Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 [quote name='Roamin_Catholic' timestamp='1349582062' post='2490882'] For some reason, this comes to mind [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4-e4nlfdRI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4-e4nlfdRI[/url] [/quote] LOL!!!! Mine was definitely better... and less.... stupid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTYqNSBDDmY&feature=youtube_gdata_player Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roamin Catholic Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 I liked the Eagleman better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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