Just built my studio for under 20 Bucks.

[lost]

I know it is not great but its a start.

$9.00 Shop Light (home depot)
~ $1.00 Dollar Reveal 100watt Light
$3.00 Gorilla and Hot melt glue
$5.00 Project Board

I need to make one more so I will take Pictures of the whole process and write up a How-to. The reflector is removed from the shop light. I am not sure which way is best. But it can be screwed back on.

I need to line the inside of the box with aluminum foil. As you can see light is escaping out of the back.

http://www.btoups.com/host/CRW_5212.jpg

Here is a wide angle of the setup.

http://www.btoups.com/host/CRW_5211.jpg

I used the GE Reveal Lights in all the lights in the room and did a custom WB.

I was rather amazed at the results.

#1

http://www.btoups.com/host/CRW_5204.jpg


#2http://www.btoups.com/host/CRW_5207.jpg

#3

http://www.btoups.com/host/CRW_5208.jpg

#4
http://www.btoups.com/host/CRW_5209.jpg

#5

http://www.btoups.com/host/CRW_5210.jpg


Ok I know my composition and focus aren't the best but the lighting looks pretty good. I would appreciate any comments. The ideas have been robbed from many websites and forums. I hope they will give enough light to do portraits.

Buddy

[picture-this]

Hi, what's project board? looks good to me but seems like it could have a lil more power?

[lost]

I call it project board a search for Foam Board should yield some results. Basicly it is foam between two pieces of poster board.

More power = more heat = FIRE

Yes is is a little weak but that should improve when I line it with aluminum foil.

[lost]

I also plan to try different bulbs to see which is the best.

[picture-this]

Ya you can't go to something more fire resistant really as it would get to heavy and flop over on ya eh? Well keep postin as things go. This area of photos intrests me but I wont let myself spend money on items that keep me inside, its time to do some travelling!

[lost]

OK Mini update. After over an hour this thing has not gotten hot at all. I turned it off and lined with Aluminum Foil. It definitely helped with the brightness. Tomorrow I will pick up some Higher wattage bulbs to see how High I can go.

[cyclone]

It looks like you also used some type of fabric. Is that right, or am I just imagining things? If yes, any special type?

Cyclone

[blackviolet]

slowing down your shutter speed a few stops will let you lower your ISO.

[redbutt]

Hi, what's project board?...

I think the "official" name for this stuff is "foam core board". It's available at just about any art supply store.

[mjordan]

If the aluminum foil makes it brighter, where does the light go that should come out of it when you don't have the foil lining it? :D

The good thing about aluminum foil is that it concentrats the light. The bad thing about aluminum foil is that it concentrates the light. The idea of a softbox is to soften light so you get a more even, diffused distribution. By using aluminum foil, you are now concentrating that light and if the foil is not perfectly flat (doesn't have crinks and folds), you are going to get specular hot spots and shadows. It also changes the color balance to a colder temp (higher degree K).

Just some thoughts. :D

Mike

[defordphoto]

I think the "official" name for this stuff is "foam core board". It's available at just about any art supply store.

Label=Elmer's Foam Board




http://www.btoups.com/host/CRW_5212.jpg

[PhotosGuy]

Buddy, I just love to see people using their head instead of their wallet! I just posted another 1-light set-up myself.

You can get rid of that line in the background by "coving" the wall. Just get a lighter illustration board & bend it so there's no hard intersection there.
Keep it up! ;-)

[Avalonthas]

You can get project board/foam board/whatever you want to call it at Business Depot (Staples in Canada). Very cheap and robust stuff, my son uses it all the time.

lost in terms of light, you should try out some quartz halogen bulbs, they pretty cheap, are very bright, except they can get hot thats the only trouble. You can get them ranging from 100 to 1000 watts at a home depot like store. Anything beyond 500 watts is usually meant for contruction and will get extremely hot so it would obviously not work well with ur boards, but 100W should do fine. Also Maybe consider using another of these setups on the other side and cover the opening to soften it up. You then might not have to get a brighter light, but if ur into a nice shadow affect then its not for you

If you do go over 100Watts then u will need some sort of ventilation if ur gonna close it off with a softener, because ur materials wont be able to handle the heat after long time.

Heres an idea, my son uses it on his and he uses 500W halogen working lamps, except he uses some special material he got from school so i wouldnt recommend u going that high, but the concept should work none the less. As u can see in the picture, there is a small vent, which is in the form of a strip all the way across the top of the setup, ending about 1 inch from each side., the strip that was cut out was angled back to reflect most of the light that may be lost although it wont matter to much because of the size of ur setup compared to ur products, so the spectrum that high up shouldnt affect you much but its always good if ur doing large objects, so here is my crude drawing lol. I belive the angle is like a 45 degree one or roughly if u dont wanna be exact:

http://uploadpixels.com/upload/1113074702_uploadpixels.com_crude.jpg

Also a note, i just used uploadpixels for the first time and it looks like they reduce the quality of ur pictures by many stops. I uploaded it with Level10 JPEG in photoshop and it looks more like a Level5 now. Filesize went from 50kb to 20kb. I guess they have bandwidth problems :/

[lost]

Cyclone,
Yes, forgot to list it but it was like $1.50 a yard at the fabric store. Not sure the name but looks like generic white fabric. Not too thick.

Blackviolet,
I was shooting at ISO 100 so that was ok for me.

Thanks Redbutt & RFMsports

mjordan,

I am having a hard time understanding your first statement. The reason I said light was escaping is that you can see how bright the back of the softbox is. That means some light is passing through the foam board. The aluminum foil has directed more light thourgh the Difusser on the front which should minimize hot spots. I hope. I never said it was perfect :)


Thanks Photoguy, Those boards are going to make my second Softbox ;) I plan on getting some backgrounds.

Avalonthas,

Great ilustration. I will try to pick some 250w Halogens and give them a go. I assume the slit you illustrate should go on the top of the box. That would make the most sense. I was also considering putting in a small fan at the back if it gets too hot with the 250watt'r.


Again thanks for all the feed back. Keep the advice coming. When I perfect this one I will build my second and make a How-to for all the other broke people out there.

[blackviolet]

my bad - the iso on your first image reads 1600.... sorry mate.

[mdm]

As long as you have used Gorilla Glue, you can't go wrong!

[mjordan]

Lost, I was just joking with you. :D If you paint the outside black it will help retain some of those escaping light particals... but that doesn't mean they will find their way out the front opening. Sometimes they get mixed up during all that bouncing from wall to wall and never make it out. ;)

Mike

[Avalonthas]

Avalonthas,

Great ilustration. I will try to pick some 250w Halogens and give them a go. I assume the slit you illustrate should go on the top of the box. That would make the most sense. I was also considering putting in a small fan at the back if it gets too hot with the 250watt'r.



Yea the slit would be at the top, since hot air rises. A fan would further help reduce heat but may not be needed, as Halogen bulbs are not as hot as regular equivalent bulbs, but it wont hurt since u could use it when exchanging different types of source bulbs for different effects.

Also Ive noticed not from shooting but just from having Halogen bulbs for my ceiling fans, they seem to work poor in regular sunlight (coming through a window) as if the sunllight cancels out the spectrum of the halogen, i have no idea. But at night time, or when a room is pitch dark, they really light up the room bright. In my sons room for example which is small, maybe 3 meters by 3.5 meters or so, it uses three 13Watt Halogen bulbs (39 Watts total) and its brighter then three 100W regular bulbs. On the box it says a 13 watt halogen is equal to a 60watt regular bulb, so using there conversion, your gonna get an equivalent of 1150watts if u were using regular bulbs, yet ur only using a single halogen, so its gonna be bright as hell which will work in ur favour. (I use Sylvannia lights in the ceiling fan) not to mention they are not as hot, and they save you 30% of energy so they are cost effective too. So I dont know if its just my sons room or if other people experience a weaker light when its mixed with regular sunlight? But in darkness, dang its gonna be bright! I would recommend a small handheld fan that u can fix in the bottom or near the back, and make sure its white or spray paint it white just to keep the light bouncing.

[DocFrankenstein]

as Halogen bulbs are not as hot as regular equivalent bulbs
I thought that halogen bulbs were filled with iodine with the sole purpose of being able to sustain higher temperature? :confused:

[Avalonthas]

I thought that halogen bulbs were filled with iodine with the sole purpose of being able to sustain higher temperature? :confused:

Possibly ABLE to sustain higher temperature but doesnt neccessarily have to be a high temperature. Could be true with higher Wattage bulbs, but on all the packages, it says it runs cooler.

I only use 13 and 23 watt bulbs for home use in all my ceiling fans and stuff, and they never get too hot. I can always unscrew them with my hand after running them for hours. Im sure when u get to a 250Watt ur getting huge amount of heat, but i dont think they have 250watt halogens for regular light sockets like lost has in his setup. To my knowledge the only halogens they have that high are the small cylinders, used in the 70 dollar homedepot stand lights. and those get hot hot hot, but still not as hot as a reg bulb.

If lost was to go to a 250watt he would have to buy one of the stand type lights and then modify it to fit to his setup, as I believe his light socket is the Home Depot, Commericial Electric light, which has a maximum of 150watts, and regular halogens dont come that big. The largest halogen i see at home depot is 90watts

[lost]

You are correct the socket is only rated for 150watts. From what one of the previous poster stated, a halogen puts out more light per watt compared to tungsten. This may be incorrect as I am going on second hand knowledge. I will try to do a little research and see.

[Avalonthas]

Your correct as for example with my 13 watt bulb i get 800 lumens, and its compared to a 60watt bulb which produces 850 lumens. So the halogen is doing 62 lumens per watt compared to the tungsten doing 14 lumens per watt. Double to triple the life time too. Varies on brand but its close to that.

Here at the local home depot they mostly have Philips bulbs which i find to be very crappy. The Spiral Halogens (23 watts - 100W equivalent) i picked up had a light resembling a cheap no name regular bulb...so yellish even with the bulb having a white coating on the inner tube. The 13watt Sylvania spiral halogens i have have some of the brightest white light i ever saw and its half the wattage of the philips lights yet it seems more brighter and powerful. Im gonna search for the 150Watt equivalent halogens from Sylvania, and hopefully something bigger if they carry it.