# Cheap light tent



## Skewer (Dec 29, 2014)

I picked up some fabric today for 3 bucks.  With cardboard and tape i rigged up a 'light tent' and took some pictures.  I had a clamp light on one side and a desk lamp on the other with 60W bulbs.  Camera is a Nikon D3300.

Settings (manual)
Programmed white balance
ISO 100
f stop at 5.6 (which is the lowest i can go with it).  
Shutter speed at 1/8 
exposure compensation +1

The other picture is without the 'tent' for comparison. You can see some more glare on it (the one with the grey bag).  Not a huge difference in the way it looks to me.  I had trouble finding angles without glare without the tent...I realize that's the purpose, but i don't think there is a huge difference in the pictures themselves otherwise.

I'm getting consistent results with these settings, i just do the white balance programming each time - and can adjust the shutter speed to lighten/darken.  

C&C welcome.


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## jsolie (Dec 30, 2014)

Looks like a good improvement!    The second photo has pretty harsh lighting going on.  Are you using a tripod or some other means to hold your camera?

If you take pictures with your pen oriented from 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock (instead of 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock like you have), you'll want to stop down your lens a bit (bigger f/ number) to increase your depth of field so you have more pen in focus.


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## mike4066 (Dec 30, 2014)

i think it looks a hair soft.   try using the timer to remove any camera shake from you pressing the button.  

Also most lens aren't the sharpest when wide open. Try a smaller aperture and longer shutter speed.  You get the same exposure and more depth of field which will be helpful when you start positioning the pens on an angle.


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## Skewer (Dec 30, 2014)

I did actually rotate the pen to that angle because parts were out of focus.  Thanks for the tips - I will look to try them out.  I'm also hoping to have a tripod soon


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## farmer (Dec 31, 2014)

Skewer said:


> I picked up some fabric today for 3 bucks.  With cardboard and tape i rigged up a 'light tent' and took some pictures.  I had a clamp light on one side and a desk lamp on the other with 60W bulbs.  Camera is a Nikon D3300.
> 
> Settings (manual)
> Programmed white balance
> ...


 
Programmed white balance  < what does that mean Custom white balance ?
18% gray card is very helpful insetting your custom white balance.
10 bucks
Amazon.com : 12x 12" Inch (30x30cm) White Balance 18% 18 % Grey Gray Reference Reflector Card with a Carry Bag : Camera & Photo

f stop at 5.6 (which is the lowest i can go with it).

You are not looking for the Boken effect  F8 and up for most product photography.

They look underexposed to me.

  I had trouble finding angles without glare without the tent...I realize that's the purpose, but i don't think there is a huge difference in the pictures themselves otherwise.

The tent produces polarized reflection, you just had softer light which decreased the polarized reflection which is a 100% even or equal to the brightness of the polarized light striking the pen.

The glare or Polarized reflection can be filtered out by using a photography technic called cross polarization ( linear polarized film over your light and a CPL on you lens.  Or a CPL on your lens and use only DIRECT LED light
Like LED flash lights.
LED IS A HARD NON POLARIZED LIGHT if you soften the light it will become polarized light and you just went back to having glare or reflection .



Polarized reflection can be controlled in a light tent but by the time you figured out how to filter all the polarized light you will have learned you don't need the tent.............
The only thing a tent does is soften light and reflect light throughout the inside of the lent.
Light tents are great for product photography on many non reflective  products. 
Wood with a smooth surface is reflective, metal like chrome or stainless steel doesn't reflect polarized light or becomes polarized reflection when polarized light strikes it.

Polarized light is electromagnetic waves.

Photographing smooth reflective surfaces is a form of specialized photography and is much easier to understand if its treated that way.

The book Light science and Magic  explains this and has a section in it  devoted to photographing exotic wood furniture.


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## Skewer (Jan 4, 2015)

The programed white balance for the camera - you take a picture and the camera calculates what it should be.  Here is the photo, after tripod and increasing f-stop and exposure time.

New settings:
F/11
exposure 1/2 second
ISO 100
No exposure compensation


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## TimS124 (Jan 4, 2015)

You can cut your exposure time in half without adversely affecting the resulting image quality by bumping your ISO to 200.  The D3300's native ISO is likely 200 (which would be its best ISO setting)...but it should also do just fine at ISO 400 which would cut your exposure time by 75% while still giving the same image.

If you shoot RAW, you can push the exposure quite a bit during post-processing.  As long as it was well exposed to start with (not under-exposed), you can pull/pull/prod exposure quite a bit.

What lens are you using and if it's not a prime, what zoom setting are you using?  Odds are, f/11 is far tighter/smaller than you need.  f/11 is a lot more DOF than a sideways peen calls for....unless you were well back and used a long zoom lens (which is unlikely).

Being a bit further back, or angling the pen diagonally instead of horizontally, might help reduce how well you show up reflected in the pen.


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## Skewer (Jan 5, 2015)

It's the lens that came packaged with it - Nikon 18-55mm.  I've got it on a tripod, zoomed in all the way.


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## TimS124 (Jan 5, 2015)

Set the lens for 24 mm...your D3300 has a 1.5x crop factor on the sensor, right?  So a 24mm gives roughly a 35mm film equivalent which is pretty much normal human perception.

At 55mm, you get some foreshortening and you start reducing the available light (making camera shake, mirror slap, etc a bigger risk).  Move the camera closer and don't forget you can crop after taking the shot...most of what gets posted online has a huge amount of its original resolution removed to save bandwidth...crop and you'll end up with plenty of resolution in your posted images.

Then again...if you ask 10 photographers what settings to use, you'll get at least 10 different answers.  :biggrin:


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## mike4066 (Jan 5, 2015)

I'm not a photographer, just a geek who got obsessed with his camera a few years ago. 


I think the last picture you posted looks really good.  The comments from here on out are going to start getting opinion based, but photographers always have an opinion . As TimS said, 10 different answers from 10 people, all to the same question. 


My best advise would be to learn your equipment. Take test photos and vary one settings and compare them. It will a bit of time, but you'll start to understand the different between F/2.8@1/125th, and F11@1/8th. Also do some internet searches and read up about "product photography". 


Check these links if you already haven't. 
Nikon D3300 Review
Nikon 18-55mm VR II review
Nikon D3300 Review: Digital Photography Review



My one last piece of advise. 
Remember your photographing pens to post on the internet not Bugatti Veyrons for posters.  Don't spend a bunch of money on equipment to try and a perfect photo. By the time you get there you will realize that you could have gotten a similar result with a $3 piece of fabric and some tape.  DAMHIK


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## farmer (Jan 6, 2015)

*Auto white balance*



Skewer said:


> The programed white balance for the camera - you take a picture and the camera calculates what it should be.  Here is the photo, after tripod and increasing f-stop and exposure time.
> 
> New settings:
> F/11
> ...


 
Hey Skewer
I always set up and use a 18% gray card for exposure and go custom white balance with a white card.
Here is a video on setting exposure and white balance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ8lPKmYGc4


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## Skewer (Jan 6, 2015)

Thanks for the tips, I'm very happy with how much they improved the photos.  I was just getting started with the camera, so you've made the learning curve a lot less steep for what i was trying to do here.


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