Things to Consider when Building a Light Box

The lights are clamped inside this light box

The other day I blogged about how to use your editing software to get a white background when using a cheap camera. Today I'll discuss a few of the design elements, which I think are important when designing your light box. There are SO many tutorials on how to build one that I'll that part alone and stick with the "things to keep in mind" part of building a light box. The photos I've posted are of the light boxes that I have made (yes, it sits in an unfinished room right now). Do whatever you want, these are just things to keep in mind.

What size? Well that depends on what you are taking photos of. Keep in mind though that the bigger the box the more lights or stronger lights you will need to fill the box. Also keep in mind that your photos should not include the sides at all; in other words you need to be able to center your subject away from the back wall (remember the back is curved so you can only put your subject so far back anyway) and have it completely centered without capturing the sides (unless you are good with the clone tool :)). See my previous post on what sizes I had and what I just made if that helps you decide. You could do a mock run to see if what you are thinking will really work too. Try setting an item that you might photograph in your light box 4" away from a wall. Now place 2 items on both sides at the width that you think you want to make your box (an upright object would be better... bottle of glue, can, ketchup bottle, CD case on edge), now measure away from the wall the depth that you might make your box. Zoom, focus, look. Are your sides in view? Can you crop them out? What is that your photo will be posted as? If you built a box with these dimensions would it fit your needs in the end? Hey, nothing worse than spending a lot of time on something then discovering it's the wrong size.

What materials? The first question is what do you want your box to be made out of. GOOGLE "how to build a light box", which is probably how you got to this page anyway, and get a few ideas. Perhaps you don't want to spend $ on PVC pieces, don't have a big enough cardboard box, or don't have the tools/wood supplies to build one. If you are going for a very simple, very cheap, I'll hardly use this thing light box I suggest you check out these bloggers creations: poster board, cardboard box, collapsible cardboard box style. For a few dollars you can make one from foam board (they do make tri-fold display foam board too, which would mean less taping. Warning-foam board is shiny and you will probably get a reflection), for more $$ you can build a very sturdy one out of PVC. I was going to build my third light box out of PVC with aspirations of making it totally adjustable in size; then I snapped out of my dream state and went with easy and less designing. My new light box was originally a frame I built to catch sawdust from my miter saw; I've since revamped the sawdust catcher and this frame seemed to be the perfect size! Plus who can beat free and already made?

You might have to click and enlarge this to see the back frame
piece and how the paper clamps attach to hold the background
color in place. I have other colors stored underneath the white one.

What background? The actual background should be matte or else you will get a reflection under your subject. Sometimes this may be a desired effect though. Your background material should slope from the back wall to the bottom, which eliminates shadows and it should be removable because it will get dirty/marred or you may need a dark background to photograph a white/silver object. Also keep in mind that the bigger the box you build the longer/wider your background needs to be. Gluing/taping together a background is just not a good idea so you might have to consider purchasing a roll of white paper.

What lights? Whether you make your light box out of cardboard, poster board, PVC or wood scraps there are design elements you should think about. The first thing is what kind of lights are you going to use? If you are using floor/desktop style lights you will be very limited as to the placement of your lights and most likely will need shine the light through your light box rather than into it. If you have/plan on buying clamp on lights you must design for the lights. Clamp on lights are poorly secured to round objects so PVC is a bad choice unless you can figure out how to keep the lights in place. Clamp on lights must have something to clamp onto which means it will need to have edges that aren't covered with paper or permanently attached with fabric. Space can be a factor too. If you build a box that barely fits on a table, you will not be able to use desktop lamps so keep that in mind.

The best lights to use are the ones with a rating of 5000k or higher! The higher the number (the one followed by a K) is the whiter the light.

Design issues: With the one I just made I decided to cover it with paper from a 4' roll (no seams). Fabric would work well too. What you really have to keep in mind when making your light box is what kind of lights your are going to use and whether they are going to shine in the box or through the material from the outside of the box. There are really just two decisions. Lights inside/outside? Standing/clamp on lights? Since I know I will be clamping my lights inside the box, I had to cover the frame so my lights could still clamp on.

The front opening of the box poses no problem when it comes to clamping on the lights since the paper wrap ends at the openings. For the sides however you must make sure that when covering the material (paper or fabric) isn't stretched over the upper support on the inside. There are two ways to take this issue out of play: 1 is to simply push the paper/fabric to the underside of the top support and tape/glue/staple it so it stays there or just crease the paper like I did and add tape from the front of the frame to give it strength. The other way, which might be easier, would be to make sure the entire frame was white; either spray paint it or wrap each piece of the frame with white paper/fabric. I did a combination of both mostly because I didn't have enough white spray paint on hand. The basic idea is that you take away all of the dark, light-sucking spots so you get the brightest/whitest light.

The more challenging place for design is the top-back support because you have 3 things to think about. 1) Covering all of the white 2) making sure the lights can clamp on 3) attaching removable inside backgrounds (I haven't mentioned this last one yet).

The back of my frame was really almost perfect to begin with. The top-back support is situated further inside the box than the lower one. So I covered the upper support with white paper to eliminate any light sucking. Then I attached a dowel size piece of wood that you can attach some 1" paper clamps onto. The paper clamps will hold your inside background so it is removable.

A word about the inside background and why it should be removable. First and foremost is that white backdrops will will get dirty/marred over time and need to be replaced and secondly you should have other color options for different items you are photographing. Think about trying to photograph a white greeting card in a white light box... not so good; change the background to black/gray/blue and you've fixed the problem!

Overhead photos - Since I don't have a tripod that will look into my box, I made a camera holder out of a scrap piece of foam molding. It could be made out of any kind of wood, but I would try to use a piece that is less than 1/2" thick and it shouldn't be too wide. It's simple. Cut a piece of wood that is long enough to span the top of your box. Now measure the width of your lens at the widest part when it extends. Cut a hole that is at least as wide as the widest part of your lens. You will have to move around overhead clamped lights of course. You can see my overhead camera holder in the picture above - I cut several holes for different positions.

This was my second light box. My first
one was similar, but not as rigid
since I used thinner cardboard and it
was smaller/ same concept though.

As a final note on cardboard box light boxes, I will suggest that you use a thick cardboard box if you plan on attaching lights to it. You can duct tape additional strips of cardboard to stress points to help firm up thin areas that will have lights attached.

Experiments: I mentioned earlier a bit about shining lights through a medium vs shining lights into your box and the lights that you can and cannot use depending on which you choose. You are probably wondering now, which is better? Well, with my cheap camera it didn't matter! I've shined it through fabric and paper and I've shined it in with fabric sides and with paper sides. None of my experiments yielded a best situation outcome and every one of them had to be adjusted a bit in the digital darkroom (see my previous post on this subject).

Homemade Ice Luge

Experiment #.... ? Heck I don't know I lost track. Anyway, this should turn out fine so long as the temperatures stay really really cold! So I bought a 35 Qt plastic storage container that was short and squat from Ace Hardware at 50% off. I consulted my buddy Lance about how to freeze the clearest block of ice. I bought 9 gallons of water from the Meijer refill station which is only .29 per gallon.

Early this morning I set up my block freezing in the back yard on top of a glass table top. I checked on it after about 10 hours and it looks pretty clear... so far.

The Beer Pong Table is Making Progress

Step (1) Cut the plywood sheet into 4 equal pieces. So it took me a while to get the wood squared and even when I pushed the pieces together. I finally accomplished this by cutting 2 pieces together with them facing in the same manner as they would once hinged.

Next I (2) lightly sanded the edges and both sides of each piece.

After the wood was cut I (3) polyurethane the wrong sided and all the edges. Then it warped some. Ok, more than some... quite a bit. I did get is straightened out mostly by sponging the top and applying heavy weights and clamping it down. Needless to say, I'm now going to do an extra step to make sure the board stay straight for play.

While the polyurethane dried completely, I (4) cut out the decals that I made on my computer and had printed at Costco. They look darn good if I do say so myself.

I then removed the center hinge since it rests on the right side of the wood so I could paint. In step (5) I taped off for 2 lines 3/4" each running the length of the table on both sides, taped off a triangle 3" from the bottom on each end. The triangles measure 16.5" centered at the bottom and a height of 14" from the center of the triangle. Then I primed the taped off sections and painted them.

The paint is drying now then the next step will be to position my decals and urethane the top of the table.

Plans to Build a Beer Pong Table

Yes, that's right. A beer pong table to entertain our guests on Jan 24 since DH volunteered to host an overnight party at our house. Anyway, I decided to make the beer pong table to fit over our regular pool table mostly because I didn't want the drunks setting their beers on my pool table felt! Oh come on... you know it would happen.

THE PLAN!

Build a folding table top out of 4'x8' birch plywood using piano wire to hinge it. Seal the underside and the exposed edges of the plywood. Attach some beer catching edging at each end. Paint designs and attach printed designs on to table top. Polyurethane the top. Make a carry case with shoulder strap.

Whew! This will by far be my largest free standing wood project. I went to Lowe's and Home Depot and got what I think will be the necessary supplies to complete the project.

I'll have a series of posts here on my blog regarding this project... stay tuned.

In response to a question "Well, Have you made the table?", the answer is YES! It is totally sweet. Here my other blog posts on it since for some reason searching "beer table" in my search box isn't pulling them up.Go figure. Anyway...

http://detroitknitter.blogspot.com/2009/01/beer-pong-table-is-making-progress.html
http://detroitknitter.blogspot.com/2009/02/beer-pong-table.html

I bought some strapping material from JoAnn's and a couple of those plastic buckles and fashioned a carry strap for it. Basically, it gets folded up into quarters then near each end a buckled strap goes around the it. I then clipped on a padded carry strap from a duffel bag I'm not using to the two straps. It is easily carried over my shoulder. Well, as easily as a four 2'x4' hinged pieces of plywood can be carried. For set up away from home I use two of those super lightweight sawhorses made out of plastic and two 2'x8' pieces of lumber that I hinged in the middle. I do need to use a couple shims on the reverse side of the hinges to keep it really straight. I also took out a couple grooved in the 2'x4's so the hinges lie in the groove.

Squirrely Amusement

So how does somebody one day decide to build a squirrel feeder? Well, I had these peanuts and nobody was eating them, so I set a couple out on the deck rail where we frequently see squirrels and of course they ate them. So one day I decided to look up squirrel feeders and found these free plans online at Birds and Blooms

And that's basically how a goofy project was born. Now I have this squirrel feeder for entertainment! No I don't want 50 squirrels hanging around, but they are fun to watch from time to time. I haven't attached this one yet because the instructions call for making an access hole in each side of the feeder, but I think I make another one with only one hole on my viewing side. The video of the squirrel entering the feeder is right after I blocked the hole on the other side. That's why he seems a little confused.

The little grey squirrel is not timid at all. He learned quickly that I would give him nuts without harm. The black one however has not gotten that friendly.

I picked up a bunch of acorns on my route too so I have lots of free nuts for my amusement. I do have to look into getting peanuts though since the blue jays and cardinals will come along and eat the shells that the squirrels leave behind. The squirrels like bread too and they usually stick around and eat that where as the nuts they disappear to bury it.

For more amusement here are a couple of videos:

Arbor - trellis - bench

Finally I've gotten around to taking pictures of some finished wood projects. I should have gotten out there earlier when the sun wasn't sneaking around the corner. This is the garden that I'd posted about earlier and you can see the trellis and the garden bench in the picture too.

The arbor turned out great! I had it all set up and everything then one night it was really windy and it blew over. The canopy pieces substained the most damage. I had to bring the arbor inside into the hot tub room because it had gotten too cold outside for the glue to dry. A couple days later I took it back outside and set it in better knowing however that I would have to cement it in place very soon. Thanksgiving day was my next opportunity but unfortunately we had another day and.... you guessed it... the darn thing fell over again. Normally I would have completely tramatised by this, but now that I'm taking the Zoloft I just dealt with it. I hated to bring it inside again so I set up a heater and the halogen lights in the garage and did the repairs it needed in there. The glue was setting so it was all good. On thanksgiving day I attached the straps and stakes that I cut from treated wood, dug the holes, leveled it and cemented it in place.

I don't think it's going anywhere now unless someone hits it with their car! I still need to get a vine for it and I'm thinking wysteria would be a good choice.

A "gate" to hide

While I was on a building spree and working so terribly hard at making that one side of the garage look nice I was having a really hard time with the view when arriving home. Other than the neighbor's car which hasn't moved from that spot in well over a year I didn't like seeing the trash cans next to the garage. Since I still had treated wood from tearing down the dog house and I discovered several pickets from the fence I built over a decade ago I decided to build a "gate". Of course the gate wouldn't really open to another area, but it would swing out and allow more access to the garbage cans if needed. I also installed a caster on the bottom to aid in rolling and since I knew the garage isn't straight the caster would act as not only a roller, but also a stopper. Brilliant! Ok, not really, but anyway another project was started. There are 3 coats of marine quality urethane on the gate which unfortunately caused the "age" of the wood show since only 2 of the pieces had never been installed outside.

Here's the back side of the gate:



and the front side where the hinges are more visible:

The Log Rack

I should call it more like the "burn rack" since this construction project was began as a means to hold the scrap wood from the dog house that we can burn. I did construct a small burn pit too, but it's nothing special. I'm sure I'll redo it someday and it will be "nice".

Anyway this is the rack I built.



And this is it filled up with the scrap pieces.



I pretty much followed the directions found at Popular Mechanics - How to Build a Cheap, Good-Looking Firewood Rack: 2-by-Guy. I basically followed the instructions with the exception of using scrap 2x6 wood rather than 2x4s.

Build a Trellis

Oh what the heck. You just know I can't resist making something from perfectly good wood... and cedar at that! I had quite a few scraps left over from building the garden arbor; actually most of it came from me changing my design plan after construction had begun which required me to purchase an additional length of cedar. Anyway, it looked like I would have enough wood left over to build a trellis. Oh Joy!

I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like and after Google searching trellis images I found a trellis that was pretty darn close in an article at Associated Content:Making an Old-Fashioned Garden Trellis for Mom on Mother's Day , but of course I modified it a bit to meet my needs and of course use the pieces that I had on hand as effectively as possible; I didn't follow the written directions but rather used the picture as a guide. I did mess up at one point in what I was visualising, but it all worked out in the end. And thus another project was began! The design concept was simple and the biggest challenge was to keep everything evenly spaced. So there was a lot of calculating and use of spacers. Here's a real quick description.

These are pieces left over from building the Garden Arbor. So I decided to make a trellis out of it.



With the verticals lined up and set next to each other I marked where the horizontals would go.


I made some spacers to help keep everything straight. I'm about to glue my first horizontal across the verticals.

This is the photo I was using as a reference.

Build a Garden Arbor

So I decided that I must have a garden arbor for the "entrance" to my newly created outdoor peaceful space with the garden bench, new landscaping and freshly painted garage. I got the wood at Home Depot. After designing my arbor I bought six 1"x4"x10' and one 1"x4"x8' pieces of cedar and went to work. I only made one design change mostly because when I tried to cut 7/8"x7/8" stop pieces one fell apart in a couple places because of the knots; something to keep in mind when ripping the wood. I'm going to explain in hopefully not too much detail the construction of the arbor. It was really quite simple to make. The total cost for the wood and glue was about $53. I used an entire 8 oz bottle of glue!

1. I needed a larger workspace to rip the 1"x4"x10' cedar boards into the size pieces I'd need for my arbor. Unfortunately it was cold outside, but the garage provided enough protection from the wind during the construction process.

2. Here are all the pieces aftr ripping. I don't have a picture of it, but 4 of the pieces ripped for the "legs" I made a groove centered down the length wide enough to insert the horizontal lath into.


3. At this point I've glued in the vertical lath into the grooves and am now attaching the horizontal lath to the top and the bottom. Only the top and bottom will get the double lath.

4. After letting the glue dry for the double lath on the top and bottom I then slide the other 2 vertical lath pieces between the top and bottom laths. Notice these are equally spaced. Notice that I have the side elevated on 2x4s so I can get the clamps under it. Glue, clamp, wait....

5. Wow, I need more clamps! Ok, Now for the horizontal pieces. Once I calculated how much space I would need between lath pieces I cut a piece of board to that size so I didn't have to keep measuring. The board is not pictured. Anyway, when constructing the arbor I had to keep in mind that the public side was facing down. I messed that up a few times, but it's not noticeable. This process took a while since I only had 11 clamps. Fortunately I didn't have to clamp it for too long and could remove the clamps for the next part since the side wasn't being moved around.


6. Here are the two finished sides for the arbor.

7. Next is to square the arbor and attach the beams. Notice that I've cut a notch from each end of the beam with a jigsaw. Note that the structure is elevated on 4x4's.

8. Finally I'm using screws! Here I've countersunk 1 5/8" deck screws to attach the beam to the sides. It's important to use deck screws since any other screw will react with the acidity of the wood. You can use stainless steel too, but that would cost an arm and a leg! To attach the beam to the other side you'll want to stabilize the unit by clamping scrap wood across each side of the bottom as seen in the picture with me standing in it. Always clamp the bottom like this when moving the arbor.

9. Attach 4 angled braces to help sturdy the structure. Both ends are cut at 45°. Technically the two 3" screws you see there horizontally should enter the brace and follow the grain of the wood. This is something I learned later, but what I did worked just fine. The other 2 screws are 1 5/8".

10. Hmm, I thought I took pictures of the canopy installation. Oh well. Obviously the canopy pieces are all centered across the top; they are glued and screwed into place.

Anyway this photo shows the arbor in completion. Here you can see the braces on the bottom.

11. Have a beer and enjoy the finished structure. I was surprised at how big it looks! Yes, I have glue all over me.

Hot Tub Tables

There's been something missing from our Thursday night dinners with our running buddies for some time now and it's certainly not the lack of interesting conversations either. What we've been missing are side tables for our hot tub. That's right, we do actually set our beers down from time to time. So I came up with these nifty tables designed to follow the contour of the hot tub. The one for the back of the hot tub has a different design because of the plug being back there. They are constructed of plywood, pressed wood, 4x4's and 1" round dowels plus the 3/8" dowels that add the extra support for the back table. I primed the wood at first with a spray paint primer and decided that I really wanted to cover the texture of the wood more so I followed the first primer with a brushed on exterior primer. The tops are finished with a satin spray paint followed by 3 coats of a satin lacquer. The legs and base were primed the same way and finished off with 2 coats of "Hammered" spray paint; it creates on a hammered metal look. I wasn't going to finish the dowels of the back table, but after one use I see that they got a little wet; the back table 4x4 is made out of treated wood so it's fine the way it is.

I just uploaded the picture of the third table which fits in the back corner behind the hot tub. I'm adding a picture here, but there is another post about it too.

Lance was quite impressed with my creations and my steady hand with a jigsaw.