Your DIY lighting and diffuser setup for smallish objects?

[jay moussy]

What is your simple DIY lighting setup for table-top small objects, like a coffee cup or such?

 

[jay moussy]

Bump.

photographing small objects with home set-up?

Is my question lacking sense maybe?

 

[dasBlute]

I dunno DIY... why not just window light? guess it depends on what quality of light you want...
if you need a lot of [perhaps diffused] light, I've seen some youtube videos of homemade LED panels,
the fancier ones seem to have a way to dim them... after seeing those, I built a UV box so, anyone can do it

 

[eli griggs]

Simplest is white, Matt black, both a crumpled and smooth aluminium/mylar and, some gold material, glued down to card card or foam core sheets, large home built 'wall' reflectors and small white & black index, etc cards for shelf/table top sets.

Curtain sheers, black and white are good for 'conditioning' incoming light, especially before being reflected into a shot, but bed white sheets work too.

Reflectors in black, 'absorb' light from, for example the dark side of a person's face, white/silver/gold, kicks it in.

White cards need to be actually white, and, besides top notch white 100% gotten rag art papers good, heavy pigment paint, Tin. Is great, lead will gray, and zinc is transparent, so it needs a number of coating, for a 'glow' effect. It's also sort of blueish.

You can also try diffusing through thin 'kozo' papers, in multi-coloures and some in patterns or with inclusions

Small flash units can be hidden in the scene, medium and large units can be directly pointed through sheer materials or reflected in by umbrella, card, wall.

These are good starting tools, used by many photographers and should keep you busy learning how versatile they are, for a long time.

Most important, if doing b&w, colour contrast, warm-cold contrast, reflective-matt contrast, etc, will always matter too and never forget, white on black, black on white is always key in setting up your 'set'.

IMO.

 

[MattKing]

For a while I used a white children's play tent from Ikea with a couple of flashes on stands.
The results were good, but t was awkward to use on a table top.

 

[eli griggs]

Yes, such sets take room, and I've some folding plastic saw-horses for larger boards, with a thick quality 4' x 8' like used in many set-up professionally, however, a folding table tennis table that can be pushed out of the way would give you the same great stage for working magic, provided you have the space to store, set-up and work around, including with standard stands.

One Gallon metal buckets of concrete, with steel conduit will reduce the footprint of a small set, be used to hang backdrops, hold reflectors and scrims or lights, and are cheaper than store bought kit, and just as "Professional".

If you have no seen the "Strobist" websites/publications, you'll discover all kinds set-up but few better or less expensive.

IMO.


Cheers.

 

[M Carter]

Not exactly DIY, but these silk flags and a stand with a boom and knuckle make shooting small products go really fast. I have a couple sizes. I have some cheap Ikea table cloths from when my friends DIY's their wedding and they're just-right soft diffusion, just drape them over something and light through them. I have piles of white fabric I got at the fabric store for making big diffusion walls, and even tracing paper taped clipped over a light can be handy.

 

[foc]

I would think you need to decide on your light source first.
Daylight or artificial?
Daylight is probably the easiest to use as you can see what is happening as you move and change your composition.
Diffused daylight through a window (tape a sheet of white cooking parchment baking paper/greaseproof paper to the window), with large white card/paper sheets used as reflectors.
Or maybe something like this.


Personally, I would select artificial as you can control it but can be complicated.
Then what type of artificial lighting?
Lamps or flash?
Lamps can cause colour temperature problems if using standard colour film (daylight) and no colour correction filters are used.
Flash is consistent but needs to be measured actually

 

[fgorga]

As for diffusion, it doesn't get anymore DYI than this... https://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html

As for lights, I just use some old desk lamps with LED bulbs in them. I adjust their intensity by moving them closer or farther away and/or by covering them with translucent materials. With LED bulbs one doesn't need to worry about melting or igniting these materials.

I also have a bunch of roughly letter sized pieces of cardboard some are white, some black, some covered in crumpled aluminum foil for use as flags and reflectors.

 

[John Koehrer]

Start with Frank's method, It will give you a start. find something you take a liking to and improve it. Lighting isn't all
that easy without sme mistakes in the learning curve, it ain't going to happen overnight.

 

[bdial]

If you're unsure about completely fabricating something, these spray painting tents are available from various sources, and inexpensive (32 USD)

This particular one is here
Continuous lights will be easier to work with than small strobes because you'll be able to see what the light is doing and make adjustments. Jo-Ann fabric's clearance table is a great source for fabrics to use as background or other light controls.

 

[jay moussy]

Start with Frank's method, It will give you a start. find something you take a liking to and improve it. Lighting isn't all
that easy without sme mistakes in the learning curve, it ain't going to happen overnight.

Yes, that is the plan, as that should meet my modest needs, and be a platform to learn.

 

[eli griggs]

One piece of advice, DO NO Use Rip Stop Fabric!

I landed a job when I was touring a studio I wanted to work for, because none of the three photographers realized that a grid pattern in a very large formal 'set table', (that was the showcase shot for a Dillards or was it still Iveys) huge yearly shoot, shot on shinny black or deep charcoal acrylic, all four foot by eight foot of the set of china, silverware, crystal and glass, candles, etc.

The set-up was driving the lead photographer crazy, and he had, as had the other hired photographer, worked for the largest photography studio in the N.C. Furniture Manufacturers Industrial Area, for a number of years, where he never ran up to this situation.

It took me every bit of a couple of seconds to see the grid pattern was coming from the very large soft box, which they had recently built, using rip stop nylon or silk.

My point is, rip stock will do a similar thing to your still lives, so use none girded fabrics to avoid this, in your set or light boxes, and save yourself a lot of bother.

Cheers.