I had a bit of time today, so I haphazardly constructed my version of the light tent.

Materials
- shipping box (just cut a huge hole on the sides, top, and back)
- 3 pieces of t-shirt wrapping paper you get from stores (lining up the cardboard box)
- just one desklamp on my desk.

Here's the bootleg setup:


Some Results (you can see the wrinkly tissue paper & you can also see the lining where the back ends, very disastrous)










4 of my favorite fountain pens (Hero 100, Platinum, Parker 51, Waterman Hemisphere)




The pictures look nicer than if I were to take it anywhere, but it's pretty ugly for tent pictures.

Nice. If you saw my pictures...shudder

The dolls are adorable! and so are the stars. I used to make those. Those are the most darling baby dolls I've ever seen! The ones i see usually look like little ogres.

PS: I like your avatar too.

Hi,

Oooo, pretty!!

I still remember fixing a Platinum like the one in the picture. Now, after your pictures, I know what size of pen you like!

Dillon

I also think those baby dolls are really cute too! They're only 5" tall

And when I saw that picture of of Curious George, I knew I had to turn it into an avator

Dillon, yup, I like those thin-medium pens, not as pencil thin as your likings, but not as wide as some other people. More importantly, I like light pens

Very nice Betty. You bought a Rebel XT didn't you? How do you like it so far? I just got a Canon 20D myself. I've finally entered the digital age. I bought a folding white mesh clothes hamper at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for $7.99. It's 14 inches per side, and folds up for storage. I shot a pen with this setup:




Mine was also a one light setup, but i placed the light at the left-front of the tent with a reflector on the right.I only had a few minutes to set up the shot, so I'm hoping to improve greatly. Photgraphy has been a serious hobby of mine for over thirty years, so the picture of the Stipula above SHOULD be much better!

Again, nice job! You'll figure out the lighting and compositions that make you happy with practice. Ain't photography fun?

Larry

Wow Larry, with just one light source, your background looks so clean and smooth! I don't really understand how you had the light setup. Can you take a picture of your setup when you have time? I'll try to replicate it

Yup, I got the Rebel XT, which I really love The 20D is an even more excellent camera!

Betty,

Here's the setup I used.



The mesh is very thin on this hamper, so I put a white hankerchief over the corner of the tent in front of the lamp. I used a white sheet of paper out of the printer to lay the pen on, and another on the inside of the tent on the right to act as a reflector. The reflector bounces enough light back onto the right side of the pen to fill shadows and add a modelling effect. The camera was actually a little higher for the photo, I lowered it to show the setup better.

The lens used was a Canon 28-135 IS, which is the 35mm equivalent of your 17-85 IS. You have an excellent lens, I just read a test of it online. It outperformed my 28-135, which ranks as the best zoom I've ever owned. I hope this helps.

Larry

Hi Betty,

Great setup for a first light tent! And I just love those dolls (oops, let my wife not hear this ).

You mention you cut several holes in the sides, and the back. Try to use several lights, shining through the lining, for a different kind of lighting, and just play around a bit with the lighting setup, until you like the result in the pictures. Don't put the lights too close, because that results in a lot of contrast (unless you prefer it that way).

The big trick, btw, with light tents, is to make sure you only focus on the object of interest, and make the depth-of-field (DOF) such, that only the objects to be photographed are sharp. That way, the sides or back do not get into sharp focus. This also means that the tent has to be relatively big compared to the object you're making a picture of.

Try making a picture of a single doll, right in the foreground, towards the front edge of the tent, and use aperture priority mode on the camera, or better still, manual mode, make sure you use a large aperture (small number), and focus just before the point you really want to have sharp in the picture. This because generally there is something a little before that point, and after that point you want sharp too, but DOF is less towards the camera than away from it.

To spruce things up even further, what you could do is find a little piece of cloth to put the doll or pen on, or a glass plate or something (perspex is also fine). In the latter case (glass or something), use something to lift the glass from the ground level in the light tent, and make sure you don't get the edges of the plate in the picture. You can combine the two techniques as well, if you like (glass plate, cloth, etc.).

Another thing you can do is use a slightly bigger piece of paper, or thin cardboard, attach it to the front on one side, and to the top at the back, so it curves up towards the back. This provides you with an even background that gradually drops back.

It certainly looks like you found another hobby here!

BTW, if these were handheld shots, try to put the camera on something sturdy, like a few books, making sure it can't slide off of course, and maybe prop one end slightly up. Also, try to use the timer to get the shot, rather than trying to hold it still while pressing the shutter release button.

HTH, and thanks for sharing!
Warm regards, Wim

Thanks for all the suggestions Larry & Wimg Larry, that mesh hamper looks really useful and even better that you can fold it up since I don't have much room at all! I'll look for one to buy

Wimg, yup, all these were handheld shots. It was just funny watching the picture shake through the focusview. I didn't even realize my hand would be shaky. It certainly didn't appear so when I hold my tiny point and shoot.

I have a busy week at work; but hopefully I'll have some time later on to test again and share again

I learn more from this board in laysman language & laysman budget than those camera boards with lots of technical terms and very professional (read $$$) setup equipment.

Hi Betty,

I just thought of something else. What I did in the past is just use a white bed sheet or table cloth, which I would drape over a small table, positioned against or close to a wall, and somehow hang the other end from a bit higher up on the wall.

I would use a few desk lamps with pieces of white paper in front of the bulbs as diffusers, and this would actually give good results. If I needed back lighting, I would make sure there was enough space between the cloth and the wall that I could put a light there as well, without burnign a hoel in the cloth .

Regarding handholding of close-up and macro shots: I know there is a stabilizer on your lens , but at the shutter speeds you're looking at for this type of photography, handholding is rather difficult, if not impossible . It is not only that you need long exposure times, but because you are so close to an object, every movement you make is enlarged as well. Whereas you might not notice this in normal photography, you would when shooting close-up. A millimetre movement or so over a distance of 100 m or more is hard to notice, but on a few cm it is.

I was amazed actually your pics didn't show the typical double image of handheld long exposure shots, but I guess that means you must have a rather steady hand.

HTH, warm regards, Wim

Betty, I think I have watched too much SNL or something, but the milling throngs of babies pictures are a little spooky

I didn't set any long exposure shots? I just used the auto mode to take the pictures. I still didn't read the instruction manual yet, so I don't know how to set those kind of things or even understand what they really mean. I just set on auto and adjust the lens through MF only. He he...

That's funny. Quite a number of people find babies spooky.

Only when they come in packs.....

Hi Betty,
I am quite sure the exposure times were rather long for a handheld shot, even in Auto mode, assuming the flash didn't go off .

I usually set the camera mode to Av (aperture priority; occasionally) or M (manual) mode for this type of shots, and focusing I set to manual as well (the little button on the lens, from AF to MF). I use M mode because I work with a bunch of flashes, off camera.

If you use lamps, you're better off using Av mode, where you set the diaphragm (aperture), and the camera chooses the shutter speed. I would suggest using F11 (11.0 on the camera) in most cases, more if you need more depth of field, or less if you need less.
You can actually set this, when in Av mode, by turning the rotary button in front of the shutter release button. In the viewfinder or the little external LCD display it will indicate this anyway. You can check the depth of field by pressing the little round black button just above where it says Rebel XT on the body (the image in the view finder will get darker though, because the aperture closes to the aperture preset).

And do focus manually, and check if everything you want in focus is, by using the depth of field button.

Warm regards, Wim

Well, those baby dolls aren't spooky... but I have seen many spooky baby dolls

A good rule of thumb is never shoot slower than your focal length. This helps prevent shakes and soft images/ out of focus images. Example, Using a 100mm macro lens, you should not shoot below 1/100th of a second unless the camera is supported by a tri pod or equivelant. The more experienced you get, the more you can control your breathing and camera shake.

I would strongly suggest you take a photography class on the basic fundamentals of photography. This would provide more information than a Canon tech manual. The tech manuals are good for decyphering the different settings on your camera such as program modes and setting manual white balancing. For basic fundamentals of photography, you really need to learn in a classroom atmosphere and have plenty of shooting labs (photoshoot projects) and have them critiqued by a photo instructor. There are plenty of classes that are held on weekends, so you can work around your schedule.

TNS