Light Studio for Photographers (Tabletop)

Step 3 Cut and Apply Light Diffusing Material to Box Windows

This step involves cutting your material, in my case a vinyl shower curtain to fit the open spaces on the sides of the box.

Get your measuring tape or w/e you have and measure the square spaces in the sides of your box to get an idea of how big to cut your squares of material. Going past the edge is key here, in case you may not have realized that. So if your square space is 18 inches by 18 inches then you want your square piece of material to be 20 or 21 inches.

The look of the box isn't important, so going over the edge and doing a crappy tape job isn't the end of the world. You can still make it look neat if you tape the material on from the inside of the box. You could also glue it if that floats your boat. The 2 or more inches of space you left at the edges is where you will attach the light diffusing material to, whether you do it from the inside of the box or outside of the box. As you can see I just taped mine on the outside with duct tape. Look at the image notes.

The bottom of the box does not need covered with the light diffusing material, leave the hole..as a hole. The poster board will be covering the bottom anyway.

Note: Try to keep your material tight or "stretched" so to speak so its not all saggy or droopy in effort not to cause serious shadows or detectable light distortion....creases aren't a big deal as you can see my shower curtain has creases in it and I have found no effects in my photos.

Comments

[suayres]

I would think wax paper would be way too fragile. I think baking parchment ( sold in same area as wax paper) would work better, as it's sturdier, but still pretty economical.

[walrus13]

Would wax paper work? Like the kind used for cooking, and if it's not big enough would you want to overlap or have seams?