A light tent is a surrounded region made of a transparent substance that provides flawless, diffused lighting. Normally they are used to get low contrast light for objects being shot. This is achieved by targeting light towards the outer surface of the light tent which makes the light inside less contrasting. Mainly there are two major designs of light tents. They are:
Hard-box light tents
Softbox Light tents
Hard-box light tents design involves use of cardboard boxes, translucent plastic sheets and white foam used to diffuse and reflect light. On the other hand the softbox light tent design uses woven materials such as tissue paper and bed sheets to give you that seamless surrounding that you can easily reposition and readjust. Softbox light tents mostly are more affordable and uncomplicated than Hard-box light tents.
Normally, people approach professional photographers or consider buying expensive light tent kit available from specialized photographic equipment supply companies (such as Calumet, E-Z Cube Light Tent and Photek) to photograph smaller objects. On one hand, these kits provide convenience in terms of ready made availability of the equipment and easy usage but on the other hand, they are expensive and mostly, not capable of delivering desired results in terms of light and shadows as they are difficult to alter according to the user requirements.
Building A Light Tent
Problems of the available light tent kit can be overcome by building one’s own light tent. To build a light tent is probably the best given alternative, it can be customized for each customer’s distinct needs. A step-by-step, simple but useful way to build a light tent is as below;
- First, of all, you need to get pipes, tee connectors and bend connectors. Pipes are chosen according to the requirement of the user.
- Next, you need to divide the pipe into eight pieces (4-small, 2-bit larger and 2-largest pieces). Also you need to get 4 really smaller pieces of the pipe
- Using the smallest pieces, you are required to connect the tee and bend connectors.
- Using the pipes and connectors made in step 3, make a cube like structure.
- Attach an A-1 sized card to one of the upper sides of the cube using screws.
- Then, cover the outer sides of the cube with white bed sheet or tissue paper. Remember, you need to set free one side of the cube from where you will shoot the photograph light tent.
- Finally, you need to get four lamps, two lamps for the two opposite sides of the cube i.e. opposite sides of the single opening of the cube.
- A simple Light tent is complete; you can now place your objects inside the light tent from the single opening available in it, switch on the four lamps and get the photograph light tent using your camera.
The above mentioned procedure is used to make a simple and more affordable light tent. This kind of light tent costs substantially lower as compare to professional equipment.
Considering the facts presented about light tents and the easy process for building them, photography of smaller, shinier objects is not difficult any more. One can now build one’s own photography Light tents which cost a fraction of the professional equipment and can be customized according to one’s needs leading to superior results.
