I was getting sick of not being able to take good photos of my projects, having to light them with a desk lamp and always getting my messy desk in the background. Then I saw the photos for the Scrub robot instructable and decided I needed a lightbox to get that diffuse white lighting and "infinite" background.
I currently have the Cambridge Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronic Junk, from which I salvaged a 12V white CCFL that I think was the light in a scanner, so decided to make this lightbox self-illuminating to remove the need to point lights at the outside or mess around with slave flashes. The whole thing is self-contained and only needs a 12V power source to light itself.
I currently have the Cambridge Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronic Junk, from which I salvaged a 12V white CCFL that I think was the light in a scanner, so decided to make this lightbox self-illuminating to remove the need to point lights at the outside or mess around with slave flashes. The whole thing is self-contained and only needs a 12V power source to light itself.
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Signing UpStep 1: Materials Needed
- A large cardboard box- mine held a duvet and measures roughly 18" x 15" x 12"
- A cardboard box long enough to hold your CCFL. I used a shoebox
- Enough white paper to cover four sides of your large box
- Permanent marker
- Something for a diffuser material, eg. paper or a white plastic bag.
- A white CCFL and inverter
The large box will be our lighting stage, open at the front. The shoebox will house the CCFL above a window in the top of the "stage" box, with a diffuser separating the two to provide soft light into the stage.
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For post-processing photos, I tend to use a "curves" effect on my photos to lighten it just enough that the entire background becomes white but the shadow under the object remains- that's what I did for the cable and padlock images above. This is my teapot lid with the levels adjusted and a slight (~10%) oversaturation: