Lighting for Still Photography
A lot of my photography has been of arts and crafts projects (small models, knitting, and jewelry pieces). The key to getting the best shots of these items is soft lighting that illuminates as much of the project as possible. For most people at home this means using some sort of light tent with exterior lighting. These tents come in 3 main forms; square, pop-up, or home-made. I will go through what I think are the pluses and minuses of each of these light tents.
The square light tent – This is a box that unfolds from a flat package. It will have translucent white panels on the side and top. Often they will come with various colored cloth backdrops (usually black, red, blue, and white). These are very durable and fairly easy to set up. However, the sizes they come in are limited (usually 16 or 24 inches). The fact that the back is solid means you won’t always get that soft wrap around lighting you want on every shot. They also often come with some cheap lights to provide the lighting you need. They kind of work. But I recommend finding a different lighting source. This was the first light tent I bought. If a cat had not done something awful to it, I would still have it.
The pop-up light tent – When set up these have translucent panels on all but one side. The one side without a panel is the one you take pictures through. These store very compactly and are easy to set up. The smaller ones are also easy to take down. The larger ones it takes a little twist to get them down to the size that fits in the bag they come with. They will also usually come with several different cloth backdrops. The sizes I’ve seen these in go from 12″ all the way to 68″ (that’s over five and a half feet!). The smaller ones with have a tendency to have a hammock effect with the material that is the floor. This means that lighter items will have a tendency to fall over unless you put something solid under the the tent. Overall, these are my favorite light tents because of all sides being translucent and they can be stored in a small space.
Home made light tents – These can be anything from a plastic milk jug cut so you can place small items inside, to cardboard boxes with tissue paper, to elaborate setups using PVC pipes and cloth. They can be made very cheaply, or be very expensive. The problem with most of them is that they can be delicate, difficult to store, and only do a mediocre job. And, when you consider you can buy a pop-up light tent for as little as $16, I don’t see the reason to build it yourself.
Now here are some tips that apply to all light tents (and where I say to do some things yourself):
- The backdrops that come with these tents have a tendency to collect lint, hair, dust and other debris. They are also just about permanently creased. I recommend going to a fabric store and finding some cheap fabric that doesn’t do these things and some glue on Velcro. You then just cut the fabric to fit and stick the Velcro where it needs to go. When you store it, store the fabric rolled up and not folded.
- Lighting – Lighting is still important. I use a setup that combines a $6 worklight fixture (buy the kind that has a clamp and reflector) and a 100 watt LED flood bulb ($9 at my local hardware store). I’m planning on adding some dimmers because this can sometimes be too bright. You just clamp the lights where you need them (in my case, the edge of my work table). The nice thing is that these don’t heat up and can be used for other lighting functions. A cheap white pillowcase makes a great diffuser on these lights when you are not using them with the light tent.
- Space – Make sure you buy a light tent with enough room to hold what you want to take pictures of. But, also make sure you have enough room for the light tent. I have a 40 inch pop-up light tent that just barely fits on my work table. This makes working with it into a chore.