Ideas for a Home Studio Light Tent
A light tent allows you to take photos of small (and sometimes large) objects whilst having full control of the lighting arrangement (position, brightness, etc.) If you are regularly taking photos for eBay, or like me, wishing to take photos for stock photography, a light tent can be a great investment.
The photo above shows a typical light tent. This one has been made by Bill Huber. He also has a detailed and well written set of build instructions here. Thanks for giving me the inspiration to build one myself, as I was very tempted to buy one.
Commercial light tents can be quite expensive, about 100 dollar for a very small one with a single light, up to several hundred dollars for larger tents with multiple lights that allow a more flexible lighting setup. A DIY solution can be built very cheaply, with the parts being easily available from most hardware stores.
I will be taking a similar approach to the one proposed by Bill, by using PVC tubing and angle brackets to build a rectangular tent frame. This will allow me to build legs of different heights to cater for different sized objects. I am also reading about the importance to use ‘daylight’ light bulbs, as traditional lights can produce a yellow tint to photos, requiring you to adjust the white balance (with typically less than ideal results).
DIY Links
The following sites should provide you (as they did me) inspiration to build your own light tent.
- Bill Huber detailed build instructions
- Andy Piper’s 3-part series, part 1, part 2 and part 3
- A Flickr search finds a lot of good examples of DIY light tents
- The $8 Light Box/Tent
- DIY eBay Photo Studio - $0
- How to Make A Inexpensive Light Tent
I will keep you updated with my progress.
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