Light Tent for Photography

[fred.]

On the Painting Comp Thread the use of light boxes / tents for getting good even light when taking photos of minis was mentioned.

These are some links to home made light boxes

http://www.wikihow.com/Create-an-Inexpensive-Photography-Lightbox
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent
Both basically use a card board box with the sides cut out, and thin material of paper covering the holes to allow diffuse light through. These are both fairly big ones, for 10mm minis you could make a much smaller one. I've had a go using a plastic milk bottle.

I have also made a temporary light tent using a white handkerchief as the diffusing material and some paint pots as stands http://www.kerynne.com/games/LightTent.html

Light tents are available to buy starting at £11 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Photolight-Foldable-Softbox-Backdrops-Backdrop/dp/B004LCW416/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1325932581&sr=8-3  I have one similar to this - but it does take up a lot of space when setup, especially with lights around it.


A tripod will also help as you will be able to take longer exposures, which allows more light into the camera. Also to get multiple figures in focus you want a large aperture on the camera (which lets less light in) which means longer exposure times.

[Leon]

Excellent, I'll use this thread for the Painting Comp.  If anyone else has any other useful links, pop them in here as well please!

[goat major]

That £11 one is great value

I made mine using one of those translucent storage boxes that you can get from any old pound shop and lined it with some material from cheap white pillowcases from Wilkos ( a couple of quid) - just cut em up and glue them to the inside of the box