Budget photographic lighting "tent".

Improve your table-top photography dramatically, at almost no cost, by modifying a cheap, readily available plastic bucket.

Step 1: On-camera flash (strobe)

This is what most on-camera or built-in flash (strobe lighting) will produce. It doesn't show the product in a good light, literally. You can't see what this little ornament is really made of.

Mail order specialists and online trading experts all agree: good pictures boost sales.

You can improve your own photos of small items quickly and easily, using exactly the same principles as professional photographers, but you don’t have to invest in an expensive light tent to do it.

Comments

[photoman022]

brilliant! so simple yet so brilliant. Thank you!

[peterbryenton]

Thank you.

More tips in the "Technique" category of my blog at

http://www.peterbryenton.typepad.com/lightandshade/

[oncex]

NICE!!! I will go and get one of those cheapo dollar store buckets because I'm sure they will be thinner and cheap :D

[Doctor Popular]

Neat, a photobucketphotobucket.

[peterbryenton]

Witty, thanks. I'd like to know how the econoimcs of "free" web hosting works. Who pays for it?

[Jesus10555]

The Advertisers pay. The site, for example, photobucket, contacts certain sites, sometimes as an Affiliation. So photobucket will put an ad up for other websites, lets just say mmatch.com. In exchange for an Ad on photobucket, Match.com will pay photobucket for link related statistics. It all depends on the "affiliate" site; some base it on how many views were on a page containing their link so if you visit photobucket and an ad is displayed for match.com, then photobucket is credited by match.com some base it on how many times the link was clicked (or like those ringtone ads, how many people interacted with it) like if you were on photobucket, and saw an ad for match.com and clicked on it, going to their site some base it in a referrall way, as how many people were linked to the site and then registered or purchased something on the site your on photobucket, you click the match.com link, and sign up. or linked to amazon, and bought something most of it is in linking, There may be other ways to earn money, I wouldnt put down any other ideas of how money is generated, but Im pretty sure the primary way is linking,

[peterbryenton]

Thanks for your explanation.

[Jesus10555]

yeah, no problem

[Brobru]

Semi - related question. Where did you get the guitar clock?

[peterbryenton]

It was probably from a local gift shop. Send me a private message if you want me to look into getting you one.

[Tool Using Animal]

That is really nice, unfortunately all my buckets are full of parts.

[peterbryenton]

I suppose all of us inventor / constructor types are basically hoarders too {;⁾

[cheapgeek]

Nice- much better than the one gallon milk jug I was using..

[peterbryenton]

I never saw one of these until my first trip to The 'States. Then I really understood that "Joey drinks a gallon of milk in 10 seconds" scene from "Friends". (Our UK gallons are larger than USA ones).

[Jezza Bear]

This is a really great idea and especially useful for some of the other members of this forum for demonstrating their work, i will certainly be trying this out, although I do not have a posh lamp like you. On the subject of colour temperature and the use of tungsten and fluorescent light. When i was younger I used a blue filter for tungsten and a pink/red for fluorescent. Will the colour of the bucket make a difference or is it best to do filters from the lamp or from the camera?

[peterbryenton]

Thank you. You don't need a posh lamp: people only ever see the end result. As for colour balance, as long as the bucket doesn't produce an obvious colour cast, a digital camera ought to make an acceptable picture. With film, it's more important to match things, so some filtering may be needed. Filters are cheaper when used at the lamp head (use only heatproof gels, allowing plenty of room for ventilation) or more expensive glass over the camera lens (optical quality). Using mixed lighting, where two or more lamps of differing colour temperatures are on (say an angelpoise lamp using a tungsten bulb, together with a fluorescent source) obviously cannot be balanced with one lens filter. If you use film, perhaps you could use a video camera or your phone camera beforehand, just to get a rough idea of how the setup is behaving.

[peterbryenton]

Oops, just noticed my new invention: an angelpoise lamp. Sounds heavenly, but that should, of course, read "anglepoise".

[Jezza Bear]

Thanks I was a keen 35 mm camera hobbyist for about 25 years before I got my digicam but was more landscape, so this is a great tip.

[peterbryenton]

P.S. No lamps required, if you're lucky enough to live in sunny climes - just take the bucket outside and position it appropriately!

[theRIAA]

theres an outside?

[peterbryenton]

Heh-heh: there's not much of a one in England in January!