So my wife does a lot of baking and blogs about it, and she takes pictures of all the stuff she bakes. Recently she's been asking me to find her a lightbox so that her pictures look a little better. I started doing some research on them and decided that I can build my own for relatively cheap. Ultimately my goal is to make it somewhat portable and colapsable, make it easy to change the backgrounds but still sturdy. So here are my steps in case anyone else would like to build one. All supplies purchased from Lowes (except the poster board).

I got my inspiration from this site.

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/kmckevin/itma_...ep/lightbox.swf

First thing is the supplies that you'll probably need to buy.

3 - 5 foot lengths of PVC pipe
4 - Elbow joints
4 - Adapters
4 - Caps
3 - Cup hooks
light panel or bed sheet (or something for a diffuser)
Posterboard. At least white, but various colors for background
Small lamps.

Things that you probably already have.

Small hacksaw or something similar to cut pipe
Sandpaper
Hole punch
Measuring tape or ruler
Straight edge (ruler will work)
Electric drill and drill bits

Optional equipment.

White duct tape.
White spray paint.
PVC Cement

Pictures of supplies.

PVC Pipe



Elbow joints. As you can see, two ends fit the 3/4" pipe directly. The down end is threaded.



Adapters. These will fit on the legs. Again the 3/4" side go directly onto the legs and the male end threads into the elbow joint.



Caps. These go on the bottom of the legs.



Cup hooks and PVC Cement. I already had the cement but I didn't use it on this. The cup hooks will come into play later.



Light panel. I used this to try it out, but personally I am not happy with it. It is too fragile and takes away from the goals of making it colapsable. But it does work. This is just a simple light panel that you see at your office covering flourescent lights.



Poster board. For the time being, I only got white and black. But you can get any colors that you want.

 

Pictures of some of the other supplier that you'll need.

hacksaw, marker and tape measure



lamps.



duct tape and sandpaper




Alright, first thing I did was to measure off the pipes to get the lengths that I need. In the end I needed these lengths.

2 @ 23" (front and back)
2 @ 16" (Sides)
4 @ 14" (Legs)

So I took measured off one of them. I put marks at 14, 28, 42 and 56 inches.



On another one, I measured off the two sides and one of the longer lengths. 23, 39 and 55 inches. And finally on the last one I just cut the final 23" length.

Next up was to cut them. Take your hacksaw and cut them up on the lines you made. Pretty simple. Make sure you do this in a place where you can either vacuum or sweep up the dust.



This next step is optional, but if you're like me then you're going to want to clean it. Take the sandpaper and clean off the ends.



Now you should have all your lengths cut and the ends cleaned up.



On the leg lengths (shortest ones) you can put the caps on one end and the adapters on the other.

 

Before I put the top together, I wanted to make sure I got the back length done. I wanted something where I could easily change the background color if I wanted. So I bought some of the cup hooks. I happened to find white ones. Here's what you'll want to do. Draw a straight line down the length of the pipe.



Then you'll want to find the center of the pipe. For this length is will be 11.5". I made a mark like shown above. Then I measured 6" to the left and 6" to the right of the center mark. Next, I had to drill a starter hole. I have a pen vice from doing so many car model projects. But you could probablly also use a screwdriver or something similar.



Once you have the starter, you'll want to drill the hole out. Be carefull not to go all the way through. My drill was out of battery anyway, so I just held onto it and turned it by hand.



Then you just screw in the hooks. This is going to allow me to quickly change the background color and also collapse the whole thing without damaging the posterboard.



Next it is time to make the top. I layed it down on a hard surface to make sure they were all straight. You are kind of constructing this upside down. Lay the elbow joints down with the threaded end facing up. And make sure the hooks are facing down.



This part is optional too. At this point, you can use the PVC cement to glue it in place. I decided that I wasn't going to.

Now you've just got to screw in the legs and your box is up.



Next up is the side and top panel.

 

I wanted to try this, but as I stated I wasn't very happy with it. It works and provides good light, but it is too fragile and makes things a little difficult later. I think I am going to give way to a bed sheet. I can just lay the sheet over the whole thing, and it will give me more room to move the lamps around. Plus taping the panels eliminates my portable and colapsable goals.

I measured and marked and took an xacto knife and scored the panel. You have to be careful because this stuff will not necessarily follow the line that you make.



Once I got them cut out, the only way I could get them on the box was to tape. In comes the white duct tape.



The final step is to make the holes in the posterboard. Do the same as you did with the pipe Find the center of the posterboard and make a hole. Then make a hole 6" to the left and 6" to the right of the center hole.



Here is the final result.



I don't have a picture yet of the lamps on there. But as you can see, it is very difficult to clamp them on the pipes because of the light panel. This is why I am going to switch to the bed sheet. I'll have that tomorrow.

It is late, so I haven't finished processing the photos from my 30D. The photos here were taken with my wife's Nikon P&S. Once I get those processed tomorrow I'll post them up. Plus I am going to go get a sheet to use instead of the light panel. So I'll post those results too.

Overall, only took me about an hour to make. Cost me about $30 for all the supplies. One thing that I didn't do that I am going to (once the 2 feet of snow melts here in Seattle) is paint the pipes white. It makes no difference in the pictures because the pipes aren't in the shots, but it still just doesn't look finished yet.

More updates tomorrow.

 

reserved

 

I showed the ex-chief engineer at work how to do this a while ago and he has gotten some great results from it. Very cheap, relatively simple way to get some nicely lit shots of very small to moderately large objects.

Looking forward to your first pictures.

 

There was a post a while back ago about how to do this. Although, instead of 4 legs, I think there were more pieces of pipe around the bottom (just not at the front) with some more elbows and 3 way pieces making a more rigid structure.

I made one but it's been a while since I've used it since I like taking shots of stuff outdoors. I don't normally feel like putting it together to take pictures of smaller items because they're usually just to put up on ebay or show friends, which I don't really care if the background is my table or w/e.

 

looks good!! i did something very similar to this but i just used a large cardboard box!!!

Nice job!

 

great job with the pvc.. I just took a bunch of shots of products for my company and made up a quick foam board setup..

I think this is the actual link I used, although I used a few ideas from other similar diy links : http://jyoseph.com/diy-light-box-for...t-photography/

I'm going to try your setup asap!

 

I made some changes to it over the last few days. Need to get some new pictures up tonight when I get home.

I was really unhappy with the way the light panel restricted moving the lamps. So I removed those. I Have determined that unless the subject has a very reflective surface, the use of a diffuser really isn't necessary. However, there are somethings that I need it for.

For Christmas, my parents got us a poker table. In the box it came in, was one of those thin Styrofoam sheets that covered the felt. I just laid that over the top and sides, and now I am free to move my laps around and still have the diffuser.

I'll be getting some sample shots this weekend. I had to re-do my computer at home, so i've got to re-install photoshop and the other programs.