Light Box Photography

If you have an Ebay account and put items up for auction from time to time I'm sure you can appreciate the problem that I have had in finding the right lighting conditions to accurately photograph sale items. You have to deal with glare, shadows, and other factors which can inaccurately depict the product. Obviously a poorly photographed product might not move very quickly, if at all.

There is also the problem with camera equipment. Not everyone has a DSLR with multiple lenses, filters, tripods, remote shutter releases and all the other things that camera buffs collect for their expensive hobbies. I would would venture to guess that a good percentage of folks have probably even ditched their old digital point and shoot cameras, mostly because smartphone camera technology has become so reliable. For many people, their phone, or perhaps their tablet comes equipped probably the best camera they'll likely ever need for taking snapshots.

I've been taking community college courses and online classes on photography for a few years now and was aware that people who photograph food, art, jewelry and other types of items for publication in magazines, blogs and other web sources all use the light box technique. It's the best way to capture a subject with defused light, that is, light which is even scattered over the subject with little or no unintended shadows.

There are professional studio kits that can be purchased for such shooting, but they can be very pricey, in the $80-150 range. If I were a big-time seller of products on Ebay it might be worth the expense. I am not, however. I do like to tinker though with hobby-type projects, particularly in the summer when I am decompressing a little from the long school teaching year. So I came upon this type of photography in my discoveries with my cameras.

Making a light box requires a box, a box cutter, tape, poster board, glue, tape, and some white muslin cloth. If you don't have muslin, an old clean tee shirt will do, or even gift wrap tissue paper. There are short videos available which are very helpful. I'll post one in this blog as a follow-up.

As for lighting, as the video suggests, LED lighting is probably the best, as they mostly give off white light. Two desk lamps with LED bulbs work just fine. I shot this Asian soup bowl subject in the light box that I constructed with two battery-powered LED auto hazard lamps and my cellphone camera:

There are camera light kits which may be purchased online for stronger lighting, but they don't have to break the bank either. I found a pair of desktop photography lamps on Amazon for about twenty bucks. For less than $50 you can have a miniature studio for product or hobby photography that will produce great results. If you are into photography and looking for some new ideas to explore I invite you to give this a try!