"Photo studio" light tent?

ChrisR

ChrisR

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I've taken a few indoor shots of smallish things, and have been pretty disappointed. For selling on fleabay os here, it's generally been shooting downwards onto a sheet; for my attempts at still life type shots it's usually been onto a table, when I have problems with the background, and getting the lighting right. I usually use old manual film cameras, although the "product shots" are with a Fuji X10. I don't have any lights other than windows and a bit of light cardboard as a reflector.

So, I was wondering whether one of these light tent thingies that are on the bay would be a good buy, for example this one at £36 plus postage. Includes a 40 or 80 cm cubic tent, a couple of lights on stands (45W energy saving spiral, 5500 K), and a mini tripod (the latter redundant, as I do at least have a tripod). There was another one, slightly smaller and cheaper, with 2800K LED lamps.

Are these a good idea, or am I better buying a couple of lights of my own and attempting my own light tent? (Not very handy!)
 
These light tents/cubes aren't actually for photography, they're for selling to people who believe in marketing hype...
Just get yourself one flash head, one softbox and a simple reflector. Add a second flash head if you want the background to be white. The cost will be higher, but so will the quality.
 
Garry Edwards said:
These light tents/cubes aren't actually for photography, they're for selling to people who believe in marketing hype...
Just get yourself one flash head, one softbox and a simple reflector. Add a second flash head if you want the background to be white. The cost will be higher, but so will the quality.
Click to expand...

That's not entirely true. You can do some perfectly decent images with a light tent and some understanding of light and the camera and lens in your hand (or preferably on a tripod..). I used to use a collapsible light cube very similar to the one in the OP's link for watch photography and it worked well for me for years. Here's an image that was taken in the exact cube I'm talking about:

damit-7.png
 
Tobers said:
I''ve had great results with a cheap collapsible light cube and one speedlight flash pointing down from the top. Simple and easy.
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You can often get even better results by using the flash off camera and aiming it into the roof of the cube, away from the subject, effectively bouncing the now diffused light back down onto your subject.
 
THIRTYFIVEMILL said:
You can often get even better results by using the flash off camera and aiming it into the roof of the cube, away from the subject, effectively bouncing the now diffused light back down onto your subject.
Click to expand...

I currently don't have any flash units, except for the built-in unit on the X10, which is not adjustable for angle...
 
THIRTYFIVEMILL said:
You can often get even better results by using the flash off camera and aiming it into the roof of the cube, away from the subject, effectively bouncing the now diffused light back down onto your subject.
Click to expand...

Yep - should have added that the flash was off camera, triggered with pocket wizards. You can move the flash about and the diffused light hits the subject at different angles giving different looks. Also play with pieces of black card within the light box to give that nice chrome-reflection sort of effect to shiny objects.
 
Pete B said:
http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent/
Click to expand...

I saw this one before posting; not very collapsible, which would be a problem in our house. I was worried about the light units, I see it suggests desk lamps fitted with daylight bulbs. We don't have any desk lamps, but I just remembered we do have some bedside lamps; these are limited to 60W bulbs, but I guess with modern LED bulbs you can get much more light output for 60W than before.
 
Tobers said:
Yep - should have added that the flash was off camera, triggered with pocket wizards. You can move the flash about and the diffused light hits the subject at different angles giving different looks. Also play with pieces of black card within the light box to give that nice chrome-reflection sort of effect to shiny objects.
Click to expand...

So what's a good (bargain) flash unit that can be used off camera with the X10 and 40 year old Pentax MX cameras? A Yongnuo flash and hot shoe trigger?
 
THIRTYFIVEMILL said:
That's not entirely true. You can do some perfectly decent images with a light tent and some understanding of light and the camera and lens in your hand (or preferably on a tripod..). I used to use a collapsible light cube very similar to the one in the OP's link for watch photography and it worked well for me for years. Here's an image that was taken in the exact cube I'm talking about: ...
Click to expand...

That seems to have worked pretty well. Did you use your own lights, or ones that came as part of the package?
 
The old jessops flash units often had a slave option. That's what I used when doing indoor museum stuff. I used a light tent and a cake stand to put small things on so I could rotate it easily. Window light was usually sufficient. If you put it right next to a window so you have some angled light it's not quite as bland. All the items were then cut out with photoshop. It was all for cataloguing so it didn't need to be fancy light.

The lencarta light tables are good as well. I set one up in the conservatory to do still life on. Didn't really need any more light at all. These are the sort of results with the lencarta table and natural light. Shot on film :) https://www.flickr.com/photos/srichgtr/albums/72157645636333169

Lazy way of doing a background is to buy a roll of paper that is wide enough. Just pull out what you need then roll up if it's not dirty. Then you can just pull out a fresh bit if it is.
 
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I quite like the paper. I've used a roll of heavy lining paper a few times and it works well but its not that wide so you need to be careful about your angles.
 
ChrisR said:
That seems to have worked pretty well. Did you use your own lights, or ones that came as part of the package?
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Initially I used the little lights that came with the package. They're not great as the light is a little weak, the colour a bit warm (ideally you want the light colour to be daylight 5500k for most situations) and being quite small the light was very directional. You'll need to play around. Grab a set off eBay, do some Googling and find which flash units will work with your X10 (Google the X10 + Yongnuo and probably one of their flashes will work with a Canon off-flash cable. I used a 560 IV with a Fuji X-T1). Then look for a cheap used one on here or eBay. You'll want to play around with manual mode, get used to adjusting white balance etc.. It's a learning curve but a fun one and one of my favourite things to do is to DIY stuff for my studio that works exactly as I want it to.

You won't get the best results with the £35 eBay kit but before you understand what you're doing you won't get the best results with with £25k's worth of lighting and studio gadgets. It's a reasonable place to start, though and if you find this kind of photography excites you you'll soon learn what you need equipment-wise to improve things.
 
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ChrisR said:
So what's a good (bargain) flash unit that can be used off camera with the X10 and 40 year old Pentax MX cameras? A Yongnuo flash and hot shoe trigger?
Click to expand...

Yep - I have a 4 Yongnuo flashes and they work very well. You can just use a cable from your camera hotshoe to the flash to keep it cheap.
 
Thanks everyone for a comprehensive set of replies (and a nicely broad spectrum of opinions!).

Among the things I've found out, a Yongnuo 560 comes at around £60, and the triggers not a lot less, so quite a lot more than the light tent option. The X10 doesn't have a PC socket, so I was assuming I'd have to use triggers, but I hadn't thought of the option that @Tobers suggested of a cable from the hotshoe. Of course, flash is much more flexible, but also comes with quite a learning curve, I believe. I'm letting it all marinate for a while before deciding. May do light tent first, flash later...
 
ChrisR said:
Thanks everyone for a comprehensive set of replies (and a nicely broad spectrum of opinions!).

Among the things I've found out, a Yongnuo 560 comes at around £60, and the triggers not a lot less, so quite a lot more than the light tent option. The X10 doesn't have a PC socket, so I was assuming I'd have to use triggers, but I hadn't thought of the option that @Tobers suggested of a cable from the hotshoe. Of course, flash is much more flexible, but also comes with quite a learning curve, I believe. I'm letting it all marinate for a while before deciding. May do light tent first, flash later...
Click to expand...

When I used the light tent set-up similar to the link in your OP I rarely ever used a flash. I'd almost forgotten (though I posted this elsewhere the other day..) but back in the days when I used that setup I wrote a fairly comprehensive guide on how to use it for shooting watches. The guide was to help total beginners to photography on another forum get reasonable images of their watch collections. Chris, you'll probably find some of it quite useful:

http://thirtyfivemill.com/photographing-watches/

Ignore the large fluorescent light in one of the pics, it was unnecessary and I didn't use it for long. The two sidelights pictured can be bought for £25ish off eBay and if you get a third to hang above you're fairly well set for basic 5500k light.
 
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THIRTYFIVEMILL said:
When I used the light tent set-up similar to the link in your OP I rarely ever used a flash. I'd almost forgotten (though I posted this elsewhere the other day..) but back in the days when I used that setup I wrote a fairly comprehensive guide on how to use it for shooting watches. The guide was to help total beginners to photography on another forum get reasonable images of their watch collections. Chris, you'll probably find some of it quite useful:

http://thirtyfivemill.com/photographing-watches/

Ignore the large fluorescent light in one of the pics, it was unnecessary and I didn't use it for long. The two sidelights pictured can be bought for £25ish off eBay and if you get a third to hang above you're fairly well set for basic 5500k light.
Click to expand...

Thanks Dunc, very useful indeed.
 
Chris, I'm a bit resistant to buying anything - the world's full of stuff already and we can't take any of it with us. Rather, I'd ask why you're dissatisfied with your results so far.

So this is what I generally do for 'tabletop' items (for ebay etc) with some success. Prop a board on a table to support a backdrop. Drape plain cloth seamlessly over table and backboard. My usual setup is under a skylight but a window would do. Use white paper or some other reflector(s) to fill in the shadows a bit as you think fit. On the camera try 400 or 800 iso (these are sales shots, right - not exhibition ones?) and auto white balance. If your backcloth is very pale dial in a stop or more exposure compensation.

Any good?

It's also possible to experiment with direct sunlight (more drama), or a desk-lamp or two.
 
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droj said:
Chris, I'm a bit resistant to buying anything - the world's full of stuff already and we can't take any of it with us. Rather, I'd ask why you're dissatisfied with your results so far.

So this is what I generally do for 'tabletop' items (for ebay etc) with some success. Prop a board on a table to support a backdrop. Drape plain cloth seamlessly over table and backboard. My usual setup is under a skylight but a window would do. Use white paper or some other reflector(s) to fill in the shadows a bit as you think fit. On the camera try 400 or 800 iso (these are sales shots, right - not exhibition ones?) and auto white balance. If your backcloth is very pale dial in a stop or more exposure compensation.

Any good?

It's also possible to experiment with direct sunlight (more drama), or a desk-lamp or two.
Click to expand...
I have to say that I really like that idea as I have little time to make things, money to buy things and even less space to store them. I guess you use a tray as a board.
 
droj said:
Chris, I'm a bit resistant to buying anything - the world's full of stuff already and we can't take any of it with us. Rather, I'd ask why you're dissatisfied with your results so far.

So this is what I generally do for 'tabletop' items (for ebay etc) with some success. Prop a board on a table to support a backdrop. Drape plain cloth seamlessly over table and backboard. My usual setup is under a skylight but a window would do. Use white paper or some other reflector(s) to fill in the shadows a bit as you think fit. On the camera try 400 or 800 iso (these are sales shots, right - not exhibition ones?) and auto white balance. If your backcloth is very pale dial in a stop or more exposure compensation.

Any good?

It's also possible to experiment with direct sunlight (more drama), or a desk-lamp or two.
Click to expand...

Thanks @droj. This might actually work in our dining room, which has a side window with mostly indirect light, and french windows at the end. My problem has usually been table edges intruding, and extraneous background when setting the camera low down. The backdrop idea would solve that, though I'm not sure how I would prop the board to support it.

Is a light coloured cloth better than black? How do you avoid rucks in the backcloth causing visible shadows? If black, is velvet necessary (it's expensive!)?
 
ChrisR said:
I saw this one before posting; not very collapsible, which would be a problem in our house. I was worried about the light units, I see it suggests desk lamps fitted with daylight bulbs. We don't have any desk lamps, but I just remembered we do have some bedside lamps; these are limited to 60W bulbs, but I guess with modern LED bulbs you can get much more light output for 60W than before.
Click to expand...

You have never tried collapsing one of the collapsible light cubes then, as they aren't very collapsible either................... took me a good while, including searching YouTube and watching several videos, to collapse my light tent last time i used it, lol
 
rpsmith79 said:
You have never tried collapsing one of the collapsible light cubes then, as they aren't very collapsible either................... took me a good while, including searching YouTube and watching several videos, to collapse my light tent last time i used it, lol
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LOLOL! The first one I had suddenly exploded back into shape whilst I was holding it and nearly knocked me out in the process. :jawdrop::ROFLMAO:
 
ChrisR said:
My problem has usually been table edges intruding, and extraneous background when setting the camera low down.
Click to expand...
That's usually a symptom of using too wide a lens from too close a distance. I know because I'm always doing it. If you can, use a longer lens from longer range and you'll have less extraneous background in there.
 
Tobers said:
Yep - I have a 4 Yongnuo flashes and they work very well. You can just use a cable from your camera hotshoe to the flash to keep it cheap.
Click to expand...

ChrisR said:
Thanks everyone for a comprehensive set of replies (and a nicely broad spectrum of opinions!).

Among the things I've found out, a Yongnuo 560 comes at around £60, and the triggers not a lot less, so quite a lot more than the light tent option. The X10 doesn't have a PC socket, so I was assuming I'd have to use triggers, but I hadn't thought of the option that @Tobers suggested of a cable from the hotshoe. Of course, flash is much more flexible, but also comes with quite a learning curve, I believe. I'm letting it all marinate for a while before deciding. May do light tent first, flash later...
Click to expand...

Not sure how easy it is to find dedicated Fuji OCF cables but IIRC, Canon ones share the same connection pins, although they carry different information so you can't use Canon flashes, just Fuji dedicated ones.
 
I have a light tent for product photography, but I am using two side lights and an overhead light. Its continuous light. Is it better to get some kind of flash system instead? If so, why?
 
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