DIY Light Box – How To Make White Box for close-up photos – Build LightBox
Light Box (sometimes referred to as White Box) is a very common accessory among professional photographers. In fact, it’s a small portable photo studio. You may have seen pictures of some small item (phone, lens, some figure) that are made on a white background in online stores. Most likely, these photographs were taken using a Light Box.
The advantage of the Light Box is that there will be no shadows on the photo for the object and the object itself will be evenly lightened. At this you won’t need to set professional light around the object for hours, ordinary lamps will do the trick.
Let’s look at how to make Light Box by our own hands.
You will need: cardboard box, white sheets of paper, double sided tape, scissors, table lamps.
Cut a rectangular hole in the box. Repeat the procedure on all sides (except for two – the bottom and rear wall). It is desirable that the hole on the front wall (from where you will be shooting) to be small.
Glue white paper on “windows” from inside the box with double sided tape.
For convenience, firstly cover right and left holes. White cloth is often used instead of paper.
Then cover the window on the front wall (from where you will be shooting).
This is the only hole that must be open. Therefore, once it is glued, cut hole in the paper.
Now make the background – the slide. Our object in the photo is on the background of this slide. We used a sheet of paper of A3 size.
Glue this big sheet so that it started from the top of the rear wall and ends on the floor of Light Box.
Glue a sheet of paper on the last side of the box — ceiling.
If you did everything correctly, then everything inside the box should be papered with white paper. Only in this case, the light will bounce off all walls and will evenly lighten the subject you are photographing.
There are no special rules of lighting of the subject in Light Box. Someone uses three lamps (from both sides and top). Someone uses one lamp at the top. We put two ordinary household lamps on two opposite sides.
Here are some photos we made directly in this Light Box:
You can also use this Light Box on the street in the sunlight. Light Box will make direct sunlight soft and evenly light the subject.
For more detailed instruction, watch the video tutorial: