Built my "new" light tent,,, many pics

[stevers]

Hello all,
I've had some time off this last week so I was able to get a few things done. This is one of them. I decided to bring my light tent in the house for convenience. I new the LOML wouldn't like the old one in her house. It was thrown together when I started turning pens. It was, well lets just say unattractive.
So with some extra time available and lots of redwood scraps, I built this one. It is fully enclosed, if I want light on the subject, I will control that myself. It is also a top mounted camera design. This seemed like the logical thing to do. Now I can shoot down on my subject and the light is always even. It will lessen the rolling pen problem too. As littler as a piece of cloth will keep the pen from rolling, and possibly add an interesting background. No more need for stands or the necessity to "prop" up the pens.
I really like the results so far.

Here is the tent.

From the side

The top will open up in order to access the camera and load the subject. It has Velcro in the two front corners to hold it closed.

Here is the top fully open. If I wanted light on the subject for reflection or shadows, this is how I could do it.

Here you can see the window in the top cover that allows access to the camera. When the camera is mounted, it is fully accessible through the hole.

I also made a slot in the front to reach in and make any necessary adjustments to the subject.

This one didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. This is the tent with the lights on. The main lights are just spot lights you get at the Borg. They come with the stand and you set them up in the yard and play Crockett at night.

The light in the back is just a booster, 100 watt clear bulb. The ease of set up is nice. No more pulling everything down off a shelf in the shop. It's right near the computer, so when it's time to download the shots, it's just a step across the room. And the LOML likes it a whole lot more than the old dirty, home made looking thing.

Lastly, here is a shot taken with the tent. I have only taken a dozen or so with it. I am still getting the new set up figured out.

This shot was for set up purposes only, I didnt even clean the pens.

 

[alxe24]

Seems a pretty handy devise. More so if it is wife approved. The picture came out very nice.
Congrats,
Alex

 

[MDWine]

Well done! thanks for the pics

 

[Mikey]

I really like the mounting board along with the mounted lights. I really like the top camera setup too as I need a tripod kind of angled to get the best front view I can manage. I built mine from PVC and made it too big as I wanted to snap pictures of other stuff. I now wish I had made one specifically for pens and made a simple smaller setup like you have.

I'd say great work overall!

 

[dbriski]

The setup looks great. With the solid background like you used it should work just great for you, my only concern with the top down shot is using textured/patterned backgrounds. You will loose that "Pop" to your pens because you won't have much depth of field between your subject, pens, and the background, depending on the Aperture range on your camera. When you have more distance you can get the backgroud to go a little out of focus while your pen is in sharp focus making the pen jump out at you, but of course this is only necessary on background that are a perfect solid color like the one shown.

 

[JimGo]

That's pretty, and the resulting pics look nice, too! Great job!

 

[stevers]

Ya Mike, I had a big one the first time too. Decided to size it down this time around. The top mounting camera seems to be working good so far. If I did want some depth between the foreground and the background, I can just raise the subject a little. I'll have to give that a try and see how it works.

 

[bob393]

Nice work.