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DIY light tent
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 11:09 pm    Post subject: DIY light tent Reply with quote
When I was looking around for commercially available light tents I was amazed not only at the prices but at the somewhat limited sizes available. I have a fair amount of experienced working with PVC piping from my days doing industrial water and waste treatment so I decide to build one myself. It is 31" cubed and uses a "twin" white bed sheet folded in half and sewn together for diffusion material. I cut pieces of PVC pipe 2" long and then cut out about a 100º section out of them to act as clips. My total expenditure for this project, including the bed sheet, was under $25. It slips together and takes only about 5 minutes to set up or take down.



I have taken many images in this light tent, some of which have been published











PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 12:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Simple, effective and cheap. What's not to like about that ? Cool


PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 12:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Lloydy wrote:
Simple, effective and cheap. What's not to like about that ? Cool


And all the building materials are readily available at any hardware store. And you can make it as big or small as you need. A commercially available light tent about half that size is around 3 times as much as it cost me and you don't have much flexibility in background choice. I can use any half roll seamless background paper I choose


PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 8:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
A great idea, I thought of something similar but I have no idea of design. I assume it is basically an upside down U shape sitting on the BG paper. How is the paper held in place and can you take photos of its construction? maybe a list of plumbing parts used too.

Please! Very Happy Very Happy

I can see the straights are in 2 pieces so its going to be pretty small when disassembled.

Do your flash heads have any sort of diffusion? Looking at the setup, to me , it looks like there would be a 'hot-spot' where the light from the flashes meet.

More info!

Thanks


PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
A friend of mine used fittings like this -

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-1-4-3-Way-Side-Outlet-Elbow-PVC-Fitting-Connector-8-Pack-/321369479741

to make a very rigid cube with standard 1 1/4 inch pvc pipe, the ebay advert claims they are strong enough to make furniture with - obviously glued. My friend made a hothouse about 2 meter cube for orchids, and clipped clear polythene to the frame using pipe clips, which are expensive and stick out from the pipe. I like the idea of cutting clips from the pipe itself as NikonAIS has done, much neater and cheaper.


PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 3:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Nice!

How did you create the black & mirror thing?


PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 4:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Great tent, great photos. The fly is particularly fascinating.
BTW, what's the story with the Polish elements on the jet fighter?


PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 5:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
konicamera wrote:
Great tent, great photos. The fly is particularly fascinating.
BTW, what's the story with the Polish elements on the jet fighter?


I built this aircraft several years ago so I really can't remember other than the fact that the pilot was of Polish descent. They were the kit decals. This particular photo, and model, was featured in 3 different scale modeling magazines over about a year and a half time frame. That thing is huge too, over 2 feet long. The landing gear are made from metal because plastic would deform over time due to its weight


PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 5:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
philslizzy wrote:
A great idea, I thought of something similar but I have no idea of design. I assume it is basically an upside down U shape sitting on the BG paper. How is the paper held in place and can you take photos of its construction? maybe a list of plumbing parts used too.

Please! Very Happy Very Happy

I can see the straights are in 2 pieces so its going to be pretty small when disassembled.

Do your flash heads have any sort of diffusion? Looking at the setup, to me , it looks like there would be a 'hot-spot' where the light from the flashes meet.

More info!

Thanks


The fittings of for the bottom pieces are a simple 90º elbow, with one side threaded. The 4 vertical pieces are threaded at both ends. The fittings for the top ones are 3 way fittings, again with one threaded.

The heads have no diffusion on them, the doubled over bedsheet provides more than adequate diffusion. I have never noticed a hotspot in any photographs. The nicest thing is that by changing output percentage on one of more strobes, you can add modeling effects to the images. The image below only had light coming from above at full power and one at 1/4 power through the background paper. The glass above was suspended by some fishing line tied to the side posts. I had to get a glass cutter cut the top off of the one on the bottom and then put it into a flame to get a smooth cut.



Last edited by NikonAIS on Wed Apr 09, 2014 6:14 pm; edited 6 times in total


PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 5:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
kansalliskala wrote:
Nice!

How did you create the black & mirror thing?


In both images, the subject is sitting on a piece of glass.


PostPosted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 12:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thank you for sharing!
Simple and very effective.

Funny trivia problem for me would be that it wouldn't work here that nice looking 1:1 . For some reason the thinnest PVC pipes you can get here locally in the 5+ large hardware stores are all 5cm in diameter (most 10cm diameter) Shocked Very Happy. That's funny, no clue why it's hard to find small PVC pipes in Germany Very Happy. 5cm pipes are nice for building potatoguns and drain pipes and other DIY stuff but very bulky to build something like that Very Happy
But I think it wouldn't be hard to find an alternative as framwork or course.

For "small" objects like in your samples I personlly would prefer using very large styroboxes (styroboxes can be had in many different sizes https://www.google.de/search?q=styroporboxen&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=9cj&rls=org.mozilla:de:official&channel=sb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=3-FFU_wnyoi0BpO1gPAG&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg&biw=1525&bih=712&dpr=0.9 O which can be bought for example from restaurant suppliers, fish markets etc. for very little money (~5€). They are larger than moster comercial lightboxes (which are often only 50x40x40cm etc.) and much cheaper and most importat even better for diffusing light than bedsheet. Only drawback is of course that they won't work for anything larger and they are absorbing much more light than a bedsheet, which means that you always need flashes or a tripod.
(For German readers, "Citti-Markt" is good adress to get unused and very large ones, about 0,5x0,5x1m sized, use google to find the closest one)

I have a question:
What did you use as black background on your mirror-shots?
I used exactly the same glasplate technique (inspired by such videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-gIhidB6cE ) but in much larger scale for (erotic) full body women potrait work with a large glas plate from an (dining) glas table I got for free, which worked great, but only with white back- and undergrounds so far, as my cheap crappy black bedsheet background shows to many disturbing details Shocked


PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2014 9:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Black velvet works for me
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