More about my do-it-yourself photo cube

Due to the overwhelming positive response to my last entry, tonight I’m going to expound on the photo cube a bit.

Here are two photos of the same bracelet. The first photo was shot with my previous $100 photo cube:



The second with the new cube:



The difference may appear slight, but to me the second shot is MUCH closer to what I’m after. I wasn't happy with the inability to achieve very fine focus with my previous tent... and I think it's because it was so large that the light sources were too far from the object, thus messing up the focusing ability of the camera (I can't use manual focus because of my weird eyesight… don’t ask).

So a clear photo is all I care about, really. The low price of the new photo cube was just a bonus.

Lampshades come in all shapes and sizes; I may pick up a second one for a slightly different effect. The only thing I had to make sure of was that the metal crossbars were flush with the top of the shade...

Like this:



Rather than recessed like this:



Here is one of my shots, without any photo-editing yet... this is just how it comes out of the camera... so you can see my set-up.



The camera is on a tripod and I shoot pretty much straight down into the lamp top.

The piece of paper in there is regular 8x10 inch.

I use something dead white in the shot (you can see it next to the earrings) so that I can color correct.

My camera lens, although set to macro, is still a good 10 or so inches from the earrings.

But because I can get my lights so close to the earrings, here's how the photo turns out...