# Lightbox setup for my Wabi Kusa!



## Geniusdudekiran (Dec 6, 2010)

I decided to make a lightbox setup for taking professional pictures of my Wabi Kusa for sale. These were taken with my Nikon D7000 (with the on camera flash!). I was very surprised by the results. What do you guys think?









My Luminox 7051 Blackout. Love this watch.









Mum's rings.









A Wabi Kusa.

Questions, comments, suggestions are more than welcome.


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## T1T4N1UM (Dec 14, 2009)

Try it with just 2 desk lamps, no popup flash, like this diagram.

Hopefully the link works 
http://www.lightingdiagrams.com/Cre...:21|antic_eye.Light-torch.9:508:756:292.5:21|


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## Geniusdudekiran (Dec 6, 2010)

Thanks for the advice. Here's what I got: 


















My professional studio, lol.


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## Geniusdudekiran (Dec 6, 2010)

Getting fantastic results:


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## Geniusdudekiran (Dec 6, 2010)

menoseloso said:


> looks promising


Thanks! It's surprisingly easy.


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## TickleMyElmo (Aug 13, 2009)

Too underexposed, the background should be white, not off-white. 

You really need to make a light tent/lightbox. Luckily for you, all you need is 4 pieces of white foam board (like what they sell at Staples, Craft store, etc) Not poster paper, thats too thin, you need the foam board thats about half a cm thick.

No fancy tricks needed...just overlap the edges a little and assemble with duct tape for the easiest solution, but feel free to get fancier if you so desire. 

Anyways, then, since you have a D7000 with commander mode, just put your flash on its stand in front of the box with it facing up towards the ceiling of the box, and vary power until you get the desired result....easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

EDIT: Just realized you don't have a speedlite and your using the built in flash. Not bad at all then! But you should still totally get a speedlite of some kind


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## Geniusdudekiran (Dec 6, 2010)

TickleMyElmo said:


> Too underexposed, the background should be white, not off-white.
> 
> You really need to make a light tent/lightbox. Luckily for you, all you need is 4 pieces of white foam board (like what they sell at Staples, Craft store, etc) Not poster paper, thats too thin, you need the foam board thats about half a cm thick.
> 
> ...


Thanks! I will certainly be doing that when I get back from my trip (leaving tomorrow, returning on Monday). Should be easy enough. 

I do need an off-shoe... the Nikon brands are pretty expensive. Could I get away with one of the... umm... Chinese brand, starts with a "Y"... drawing a blank. One of those?


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## TickleMyElmo (Aug 13, 2009)

Geniusdudekiran said:


> Thanks! I will certainly be doing that when I get back from my trip (leaving tomorrow, returning on Monday). Should be easy enough.
> 
> I do need an off-shoe... the Nikon brands are pretty expensive. Could I get away with one of the... umm... Chinese brand, starts with a "Y"... drawing a blank. One of those?


Yeah, a Yongnuo 560 would do perfectly fine. Honestly, without a speedlite of some kind, the light box will be rather useless unless you use a thinner material and shine a bunch of lights through it.

Of course, you could also just do it as you are, and fix it in post processing, like so:

EDIT: I tried reprocessing it, didn't work, the .JPG wasn't flexible enough. Artifacting like crazy lol...


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## Geniusdudekiran (Dec 6, 2010)

TickleMyElmo said:


> Yeah, a Yongnuo 560 would do perfectly fine. Honestly, without a speedlite of some kind, the light box will be rather useless unless you use a thinner material and shine a bunch of lights through it.
> 
> Of course, you could also just do it as you are, and fix it in post processing, like so:
> 
> EDIT: I tried reprocessing it, didn't work, the .JPG wasn't flexible enough. Artifacting like crazy lol...


That's the name I was looking for. Thanks, lol.

I guess I should shoot JPG + RAW next time? How much of a difference does RAW make? Pardon my ignorance :iamwithst


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

to answer the last question
a raw file makes a huge difference

u can only get out what u put in, when ur talking digital anthing.. you can't get more than what u put in basically. so yes for editing, processing, manipulating. the more detail u can store on file. the more you can do

as my teach used to say. 
garbage in- garbage out.
Gold in - gold, silver, bronze, garbage out. take ur pick


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## Geniusdudekiran (Dec 6, 2010)

HD Blazingwolf said:


> to answer the last question
> a raw file makes a huge difference
> 
> u can only get out what u put in, when ur talking digital anthing.. you can't get more than what u put in basically. so yes for editing, processing, manipulating. the more detail u can store on file. the more you can do
> ...


Awesome, thanks. I'll be shooting both from now on. I like the analogy. :red_mouth

Btw -- did you get my last PM regarding the WK?


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

YES. i'll be sending a request shortly


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## tokpaler (Aug 14, 2012)

The lightbox works on the premise of making your light source bigger than your subject giving the light a softer appearance (i.e. softer shadows, etc...) 

What I would simply do given the materials available is just place another piece of paper on top of the subject and just bounce the light on it =)

Either that or just place your studio right beside a window pretty much like this one


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## Geniusdudekiran (Dec 6, 2010)

Thanks for the advice. You can see the shots I used on my site, www.wkguy.com.


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## Rapture (Aug 23, 2012)

You can try using a white paper background like that, with natural sunlight when there's also some cloud cover.










Or, if you need to take some shots indoors, a styrofoam cooler box works really well, the styrofoam reflects the light in all directions, even if the flash is coming from the front. In the photo below, the snake was placed inside a styrofoam box laying on its side.










Both of these were taken with stock lens and stock flash. Not perfect, but I didn't have to buy anything.

Some basic post processing can make the corners of the background white, if it fades into shadow (like in the first photo).


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