Make Your Own Photo Light Box

I noticed with my first three miniature models, that I painted for this blog, that photo clarity is quite important. What's the point in showcasing your work if the light and photo conditions won't do your work justice? I decided to make a light box after that first post and turns out, they are really easy and cheap to construct.

But what is a light box and why use one? They have many titles, lightbox, soft box, photo tents, but they all do the same basic thing. A light box softens the light on the object that you're trying to illuminate for a photo, making the photo illuminated but not overly so. and as for the why one should use a light box, well, check out the comparison photos using the same camera.














Photo on left: no lightbox used / Photo on right: lightbox used

First I needed to construct the box. All I did was cut holes in a cardboard box, that was lying around the house, in the two sides and in the roof.

Then I cut a white tee-shirt up, stretched it across the holes to act as light filters/softeners, and stapled the cloth squares to the box.

Next I cut up some poster board that was left over from a school project and taped it along the floor and back wall of the box.

Here's the only part that cost me anything. I already had one table lamp, but I needed two more for the sides. I found some at Wal-Mart for 5 bucks each and bam, I had me a pretty decent photo light box.

**One side note is that I had to cover the inside of the cardboard box with white poster board as well because my first photos were yellowish due to the light reflecting off of the cardboard instead of a white surface. The pictures are quite self explanatory even if my steps are not but feel free to ask any questions in the comment section.