Hi all, my Daughter is a chef and wants a light tent to photograph food. She's living in Australia and wants one about 20x20 inches with very good lighting (spectrum as well). Dimmable LED's would be very helpful. Any suggestions or recommendations? It's completely out of my field
and please use their services
Light box/light tent
- Thread starter timbo2410
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- Garry Edwards
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Why does she want to use a light tent for this?
A light tent is a good choice for quick and easy photos that are bland and simple but they don't show the product - in this case food but it applies to most things - a their best, so I would guess that a chef would want something much better. They are useful for purely functional items such as workboots where good detail is essential but making the product look its best isn’t worth the extra effort / cost of better photos.
If she really does want to use a light tent then ideally there should be at least 6" of space each side of the subject, so a 20" wide one would only allow for subjects up to a maximum of about 8".
Light cubes are the "new" light cubes, mainly because they have built in lighting, look more modern and work out cheaper because there is no separate lighting to buy, but only the best of them have extra, adjustable lights that produce fairly even lighting - the cheaper versions only have light above, and the results from these are poor. Light tents, with external lighting arranged with care, produces much better results.
If she wants good lighting with a full colour spectrum then she will need flash. Neither LED nor fluorescent lights have a full colour spectrum and, where a CRI is stated, it's usually false.
But, if she's going to get flash to produce better colour rendition then it would make sense to use just the flash, with suitable modifiers, and to forget about the light tent.
A light tent is a good choice for quick and easy photos that are bland and simple but they don't show the product - in this case food but it applies to most things - a their best, so I would guess that a chef would want something much better. They are useful for purely functional items such as workboots where good detail is essential but making the product look its best isn’t worth the extra effort / cost of better photos.
If she really does want to use a light tent then ideally there should be at least 6" of space each side of the subject, so a 20" wide one would only allow for subjects up to a maximum of about 8".
Light cubes are the "new" light cubes, mainly because they have built in lighting, look more modern and work out cheaper because there is no separate lighting to buy, but only the best of them have extra, adjustable lights that produce fairly even lighting - the cheaper versions only have light above, and the results from these are poor. Light tents, with external lighting arranged with care, produces much better results.
If she wants good lighting with a full colour spectrum then she will need flash. Neither LED nor fluorescent lights have a full colour spectrum and, where a CRI is stated, it's usually false.
But, if she's going to get flash to produce better colour rendition then it would make sense to use just the flash, with suitable modifiers, and to forget about the light tent.
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- Simon
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We need to see examples of the sort of pics she wants to make. Have you got a link?
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- Paul
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That really sums a up a perfect reply.
In the last 2 weeks, I've had 4 seperate clients all contact me to say they've been trying to shoot their own product photography using a light tent and / or LED lighting and that it just doesn't look professional, and now they need to hire a professional photographer. When they've seen the setups I've used and the work that has gone into an image and of course the end results they totally realise just how much time and money they wasted trying to do things themselves with a light tent.
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One point worth adding is that loght tents were introduced as a gadget to be sold to the public - initially at very high prices - because the public, and especially wannabe product photographers who wanted to bypass the learning and spending process, saw them as a solution.
They were (,and are) just a solution for the sellers, not for photographer.
Some - not me of course - might describe them as the Rotolight of product photography.
They were (,and are) just a solution for the sellers, not for photographer.
Some - not me of course - might describe them as the Rotolight of product photography.