I decided to make myself a light cube from an ordinary mesh toy basket, once bought on AliExpress at a ridiculous price. Over time, the need for such a “container” disappeared, and I simply didn’t think about what else to use it for, until the idea of making a photo box with my own hands was born. For a folding version, such a basket is an ideal basis. The work, however, is more painstaking, but the product turns out neat, light, and compact. And it takes up practically no space - you can even roll it behind the back of the sofa, or push it onto the “roof” of the closet!
Manufacturing cost and components
The total cost of a homemade lightcube did not exceed $7: the basket cost $1.5, 2 mini-lamps on clothespins cost $3.0, and a pair of 15 W LED bulbs with an initial power of 100 W cost $2.5 .Well, an old calico sheet that you don’t mind cutting can probably be found in any chest of drawers. The only tools that will be useful are thread and a needle, a sewing ripper, a soft measuring tape (“centimeter”), large pins and sharp tailor’s scissors. Now spit on your palms and let's get to work!
Making a photo box
We carefully disassemble our structure - we simply rip out the seams connecting all 4 sides of the basket. Then we remove the mesh and get light metal frames. As you will notice, these scaffolds suddenly take on a round shape when freed from the tissue. A surprise, of course, but quite acceptable - we will work not with ovals, but with rings.
Using a flexible “centimeter” we cover one ring and determine the length of the future binding. In my case, the perimeter was 146 cm, to which I added 4 cm for the edge hem. In total, you should get 4 bindings, one and a half meters long, and make the width a little larger than the standard one - about 3-3.5 cm.
Now we need to cut out the “cores” of these rings - 4 fabric circles that will serve as diffusers. We simply measure the diameter of the rings and look for some kind of basin or other thing with suitable dimensions at home. I had such a thing, it turned out to be a boil-off lid with a diameter of 47 cm. I carefully outlined it, and when cutting it out, I added 3 cm (that is, I increased the diameter to 50 cm, so that it would be enough to sew on the binding). Important: do not try to draw a circle on fabric using a compass - you will ruin the material in vain.
When all the parts are ready, we begin to process each of the rings one by one with tape. You grab the folded edges on both sides with pins - there is no point in basting with threads, because we will need to insert the cores into the binding.
This is what we will do now: take out 2-3 pins, insert the edge of the core with a margin of a couple of centimeters and baste “through and through” with white threads. We continue this way in a circle until we have processed all 4 frame rings.
The finished circles turned out very neat, right? Here, for example, is how it turned out for me: I fastened all 4 circles with ordinary office clips (binders). For clarity, I turned the structure upside down.
Now we return the box to its “natural position” and prepare it for shooting. We install a lamp opposite the side walls. If you are going to photograph on a table, the lamps can be secured with clothespins along the edge of the tabletop, but since my table is too narrow, I have to do this on the floor. And so that the lamps would not wobble because of the clothespins, I attached scraps from a plastic window sill to them - they hold up very well, by the way!
The first shot came out so-so because it was “white on white.”
But here it’s better: everything is clearly visible, right down to the inscriptions on the bottles.
The elephant in double packaging (cellophane + organza bag) also turned out to be quite “readable”.
Note: I covered the bottom of my light box with a piece of the same sheet, but in order not to fiddle with ironing this piece every time before shooting, you can replace it with a 50-centimeter strip of whatman paper, and cover the “holes” in the corners of the structure with pieces of fabric from the outside.
And one more moment. For my purposes - photographing handicraft objects and dishes for photo recipes, this light is enough. But if you plan to shoot something small (detailed), then 15 W LED bulbs will not be enough; you will have to buy a couple of more powerful lamps. Good luck with your filming!
