Let There Be Light

I bought a light tent on eBay, a 50cm x 50cm model for $23 including delivery. There are plenty of light tents for sale on eBay ranging from around $15 for a 30cm x 30cm size up to over 80cm so the one I got is around the middle size.

It is just the job for photographing small objects and allows you to shoot without unwanted reflections and also enables you to get more even lighting.

The light tent, four base pieces and instructions (help with folding it up), comes packed into a small bag.

Once unfolded, the light tent has a removable front with a slot that you can shoot through and it comes with 4 different coloured pieces to rest your work on, these being white, black, blue and red. These are held in place by Velcro and you can put something under the pieces to raise your subject.

I found shooting for most work, removing the front piece and shooting with a diffused bounce flash worked well. Add a slave flash to one side to minimise shadows or position it at the back when shooting through the white base to help eliminate shadows and creases.

For the very modest sum, this beats mucking around with cardboard boxes, fabric and tape.