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Build your own, professional light tent for under $50.
If you have ever wondered how creative professionals get such great, high-quality photos of their work (and you wanted to do it for yourself) this post is for you.
Whether you are an amateur searching for a creative way to add a little zing to your projects, or a creative professional trying to make your portfolio look more… well, professional, a light tent is the secret to making any work - printed or otherwise - look epicly great.
Sure, you could spend anywhere between $40 and $120 dollars to buy a light tent, or you could put one together yourself for under $50 - including lights. You read that right: build an entire photo studio for only $50. And you can do it all in less than 30 minutes. Here’s how.
What you’ll need.
A lot of the things you’ll need to build your light tent can be purchased at your local Wal-mart or other shopping super center. And most of the things you’ll need for the tent can be substituted by something similar, and often more affordable.
To get started you’ll need each of the following:
- One square cardboard box (the bigger, the better)
- One sheet of white (or black) poster board.
- A box cutter (or exacto knife, or other sharp cutting tool)
- Tracing paper (or waxy paper, bed sheet, or other semi-transparent material)
- A pencil (or pen)
- One ruler (or something similarly)
- Tape (or glue stick, or velcro stickers)
- Duct tape (or similar, different than regular tape)
- Two desk lamps (available at Wal-mart for under $9)
Building the frame.
Once you have assembled everything listed above, take your cardboard box and lay it down so that only two sides of it are facing upwards - typically when you buy a box from a store they come like this already. Using your pencil and a ruler - or something similar - draw a square smaller than the sides of the box on each side of the cardboard box; a good distance between the edge of the box and your lines is about two finger widths.
With your cardboard box still flat with only two sides facing you, and after you have your lines drawn out, take your ruler or something similar (for my box I used the edge of a clipboard), and your box cutter or knife, and cut out the squares you have just drawn. It’s best to cut out two sides at once when doing this step. And by using something straight to help you cut, your box windows will look clean and professional.
When you finish cutting squares out of all the sides of your cardboard box you should have a box with four squares cut out from it’s sides, and the flaps of the box both on top and bottom.
Next, turn the box upside down and tape the bottom flaps closed using duct tape or some similar type of packing tape. Try to make the bottom as square as possible, because it is going to be the base of your light tent.
Don’t worry about taping the top flaps of your box; in-fact, once you have finished taping the bottom flaps of your box, flip it over and cut off all four flaps on the top. You won’t be needing the extra cardboard, but I suggest saving it and using it for future creative projects (expect a “101 Creative Things You Can Do With Cardboard” article from Creative Something).
Building the walls.
At this point, you are just about done with your light tent. Once you have squares cut out from all sides of your box, the top flaps cut off, and the bottom flaps taped shut, it’s time to build the walls of your light tent. Grab the nearest semi-transparent material (on my box I used regular art tracing paper) and some regular tape and start taping the semi-transparent material over three sides of your box.
Completing the light tent.
The last part of the light tent is the backdrop, which is comprised of simple poster board (or some other type of rougher paper). Simply cut a strip of poster board to match the width of your box, then slide the poster board down into your box so that it makes a nice curve and a slightly flat base. Take a look at the picture here if you’re confused.
That’s it! Now just position one lamp on either side of your box and start taking pictures of anything small enough to fit into your box! You may find that your first DIY light tent isn’t the greatest, but because it was so cheap you really didn’t have much to lose. If you’ve got a bit more money to spend, buy another box and use the supplies you already have to build another - maybe better - light tent.
Done!
Going over the prices of parts and tools I used to create my lightbox, the total is well below $50. A good-sized cardboard box can be purchased for about $5. Sheets of poster board cost roughly $2 each. Add $10 for a good box cutter. $2 for a pencil/pen and a ruler. Tracing paper can be purchased for $5. Duct tape and regular tape adds up to cost about $5. And two desk lamps purchased from Wal-mart for $9 each. That’s $47 total.
And with that, this concludes the “build your own, professional light tent for under $50” guide at Creative Something. If you found this do-it-yourself guide hard to follow, Ivan Lam has a great DIY light tent guide, or you could use this super simple light tent guide at Instructables.com. With a light tent you can take great, professional photos of your work - and everyday household items. If you want to see other people’s light tents, browse around Flickr, and then upload your own light tent photos.
