dbgg1979

Cooked by my wife Tisha. A delicious fried rice for breakfast!

I was a bit disappointed after seeing the results of my first attempt to photograph jewelry that I decided to give it a more serious approach and read more about how to do it. My research brought me to two very helpful sources – Jim (MyArtistSoul) and Strobist.

Since I only have a point and shoot camera with on camera flash (OCF), my first search was about how I can do macro shots with my flash and not overexposing the subject. Normally with my OCF on, the subject at macro gets washed out. Until I found this very useful DIY from a fellow flickr user, Jim (MyArtistSoul). He made an On Camera Flash Macro Bouncer out of index cards for his Canon Powershot A720IS! You can find it here and diagrams here.

This started everything, I made my own and made my 2nd attempt to photograph jewelry and was very surprised by the results. I showed them to Jim for critics He then suggested I make a light tent instead. He gave me sample photos of what he has done in the past, practical tips on how to setup a low cost light tent and links to guides on how to photograph jewelry. Being new to photography, I was so excited about this new thing I just learned – a light tent. Wow, never thought that would exist and a cool name too. Eventually, I told one of my friends – Toni (Chronnus) about my project and he gave me a link to another great site about lightning – Strobist and this is the point where I finally decided to invest on the cheap materials and build my own DIY Macro Photo Studio – Light Tent.

Materials Used
- Used box of my old Viewsonic 17″ CRT Monitor (21 x 22 x 18 inches)
- Tracing Paper
- Cutter
- Glue
- Tape (electrical, I ran out of masking or packaging )
- White Cartolina (for background and base)
- Table lamp with 23Watts CFL Daylight Bulb

Total Cost: Around P200.00 for the light tent and P150.00 for the table lamp and CFL light bulb

Steps 1. Get a box and a sturdy one. Good if you already have one in storage. (Box of your TV? Microwave? Washing Machine? ). For my setup, I still have the box of my old 17″ Viewsonic CRT Monitor.

Step 2. Obviously, the best for your front area would be the opening of the box and the bottom part as the back portion. Cut out all 4 sides like the photo below. Decide which side will be your top and bottom then remove the flaps in those sides. Keep the flaps on the sides intact. They are useful later on to prevent your side lights from reaching your camera lens.

After the cutting, it should look something like this. Oh, if you noticed, I finished this at 1AM, check the clock on the wall.

Step 3. Cover the cut out areas (windows) with tracing paper. Actually you can use something else like white cloth for a much sturdier solution. Tracing paper is very thin and can easily be damaged by moist. If you use cloth however, make sure to test it first with your side lighting. If you use a lamp, make sure the lamp has enough power for the light to pass through and reach your subject. Bottom line is, you need something to diffuse the light so it will appear as a big source of “soft light”. “Soft light” makes “soft shadows” (Ok I can’t think of anything better to call that, correct me please).

Step 4. Decide on what you want for your background. I decided to use white cartolina for my background and base. Safe for general use.

Step 5. Lighting. For side lights you can either use continuous light (lamps) or if you have a flash gun you can remotely fire then use that. For lamps, you may use a CFL – daylight lamp probably a minimum of 23Watts. Get something with more Watts if you are using something thicker than tracing paper in Step 3. I use a table lamp with 23Watts CFL – Daylight Bulb, just enough for my setup.

Step 6. Customize your camera white balance with your source of light. Normally you do this with a grey card, which is btw, expensive. But if you don’t have one with you, if you use a white cartolina for background then just use that for your custom white balance. If your camera doesn’t allow you to set custom white balance then I’m sure it has presets. Do some test shots and check which preset gives you the best results and stick to that when using this DIY setup. Don’t rely on auto white balance for this one. Pros usually do this kind of thing with grey cards or color charts and customize their white balance to match with the source of light. They don’t rely on Auto White Balance. After that you’re done and ready for your macro photo shoot! Note: There are instructions for DIY grey card in the internet, just google it. I might have to test and write about that next time.

Results:

More sample shots later