DIY Lightbox

My wonderfully talented and creative wife creates all sorts of crafts and sells them through various avenues, one of which is through a Facebook account.  Check it out here.  We needed a way to get some better pictures of her products.  I found this article on Strobist.  Here are some pics of my version of their DIY lightbox.






The picture of this sock monkey is an example of what this lightbox can do.



I pulled the box out of a recycle bin and bought poster board and tissue paper for about $3 at Walmart.  Needless to say, I'm pretty happy with the money spent and how it turned out!

More Toys!

 My buddy Scott lent me his flash for the weekend.  It's a Sigma EF-610 DG ST.




The head of the flash is adjustable so that you can direct the light towards the ceiling or a wall in order to reflect/diffuse the light.  It makes a world of difference when compared to using the on-board flash.
  

The first shot is with the flash directed straight at the portrait subject.

The second is using no flash, just the light from the window.

 

In this third shot I reflected the flash light off of the ceiling.

The ability to reflect the light off the ceiling is great for evening out the light in the shot.  I think this would come in really handy on an outdoor shoot on a really sunny day.   Thanks to Scott for lending me his toys!

Gear

Up until about a year ago, I had only used Canon Powershots and a Samsung L74 ( fully automatic "point and shoot"). The Samsung was used to take the pictures of the camera that my wife and I upgraded to (pictured below). It's a Canon EOS Rebel XS. We also bought a 50 mm, 1.8 minimum aperture lens to go with it. It's a great, inexpensive lens that works wonders for getting up close portrait shots of our family.



This weekend, I rented a wide angle lens from Lethbridge Lens Rentals . The lens is a EF-S 10-22 mm, 3.5 - 4.5 (the pictures of this lens were taken with the 50mm on the Rebel, check out the difference!). I'm taking the rented wide angle lens out for a shoot with a photography buddy from work tomorrow. Stay tuned for some pics from that later in the week!