Miniature Product Studio made for less than $5 USD
One of the challenges of working on your own is finding space for taking photographs. Luckily if you're shooting small products, say your camera, drinks, food stuffs, electronics or so on, a small space should suffice. For me, I wanted to take pictures of my camera collection for my blog. I know I want a clean, white background and as few shadows as possible. So here's how I did it.
What I used
Item Cost
1x Foam-core board $1.00 USD
1x Poster board $1.00 USD
2x Binder clips Already on-hand
masking tape Already on-hand
block of wood Already on-hand
rubber bands Already on-hand
paper towels Already on-hand
pair of flashes & radio triggers Already on-hand
- Clip the top corners of the poster board onto the long edge of the foam core.
- Tape the unsecured edge of the poster board onto the block of wood.
- Stand up the back drop on a table. You may need something to prop up the back to keep it free standing (e.g. canned food, bottles of water).
- Set up your flashes with the flash triggers. Point the flashes toward the backdrop. Set the flash power to its lowest power power (mine went as low as 1/128 per second).
- Wrap 1-2 sheets of paper towels over each flash units and secure in place using rubber bands.
And there you have it. A miniature studio for taking product photography. To use it, increase your flash power steadily until you reach the lighting conditions you want. You may need to compensate using the exposure triangle (aperture, shutter speed & sensor sensitivity/film speed). If you're wondering what the paper is for, it serves as a diffuser. It softens the shadows around the subject and makes the lighting look more pleasing.
Don't have access to flashes? Don't fret. You can use a continuous light source like clamp lights instead. Simply put in a 19 watt or 23 watt daylight balance CFL bulb and wrap it with a single layer of paper towel to get the same effect.
Wonder how it turned out? Check out some of the examples here.