DIY Lightbox

Posted by foodandscent on March 1, 2011 · 3 Comments 

How many times have you created a beautiful dish, only to find yourself struggling with disastrous lighting or ran out of new tablecloths? It happens to me everyday and since I tend to cook at night, I am at the mercy of my florescent’s mood and temper. After much googling, I convinced myself that I can make a feasible lightbox with whatever I have at home and hey, it actually works!

It’s pretty simple and I made a few tweaks so I can modify it along the way. It took me under an hour to put everything together and if you’re interested to make one yourself, here’s what you need:

1. A fairly large cardboard box

2. White paint

3. Wax paper

4. Tape

5. Aluminium foam (They’re used for keeping the bathtub warm but you can use foil instead)

6. White paper or fabric for backdrop

7. Stapler

Start by cutting out the 2 longer top flaps of the box. Leave the shorter flaps as you can wrap them with aluminium to bounce light to the front.

Sit your box like the above image and using a penknife, cut out the top and two sides. Now paint the insides of your box white.

After the paint has dried, line the top and two sides with wax paper and tape it down. These 3 frames will serve as your light doors.

Wrap the two flaps with aluminium.

Using a penknife, cut a line across the top end of the box. This is where you can slide in your backdrop paper.

And that’s it. Now you have a cheap and easy lightbox that will tremendously improve your pictures.

 

Here’s some photos I took with it:

For once in my life, I had soft shadows in a photo and I really like how the edges of the eggs is softened.

This is taken with the front reflector flaps open.

This is taken with the front reflector flaps closed and backdrop changed to fabric.

I had fun making this and am pleased this is an actual DIY project that I will use.

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