Light Box

Wow. Wow. Wow. Today I am very excited. No, THRILLED! I finally get my hands on a light box.

The new toy. Cheap as chips, yet very helpful.

For about a month now I have been lamenting the poor quality of my photographs. I do most of my baking at night when the light quality in my kitchen is at its poorest. I am not very good at photography and neither do I possess a fancy fandangled dSLR camera. Actually, “not very good at photography” is probably a huge under statement ~ I have NO EXPERIENCE whatsoever in food photography and I own a very humble point-and-shoot Cannon Digital IXUS 95 IS, purchased 2 yrs ago for the sole purpose of taking holiday snaps.

I have always been fascinated with food photography though and I appreciate the quality of shots some food bloggers have on their sites; often to the point of sheer envy. I mean their food just looks so gosh darned good and ALIVE! And I want my food creations to look like those too. The secret … lighting, and in my home I have very little control over this coz my home is filled with soft amber globes. So for a mere € 29 at the hobby store I came home feeling instantly professional. Having said that I do realise I still have to work on my photography skills ~ or get a new camera altogether (**writes down on Christmas wishlist).

The whole kit came in a box, a very slim box, which was good coz it wouldn’t fit on my bicycle otherwise. Inside was a satchel which I thought was extremely handy … but the satchel was not just any ‘ol satchel designed to simply cart all the components about … oh no. It turned out that the satchel WAS the light box! The bag flips open to reveal a 3- panel screen which fit together at the seams with velcro, forming a five sided cube.

The satchel folds out into the actual box

 Two halogen bulb lamps are neatly folded and tucked away inside the front pockets of the bag. They have 3-pronged feet which gives them excellent stability, and these feet are cleverly folded and hidden inside the shaft of the lamps themselves. Very compact set this. The lights also come with telescopic shafts that enable height adjustments.

Claw feet tucked away snugly in the shaft is removed and srewed onto the bottom.

The other pocket contains the camera rig and support frame, onto which the camera is mounted. Pretty nifty, eh? I will achieve nice, still and sharp photos in the near future.  The support shaft is also telescopic and the base is adjustable to bend in a wide variety of angles. It even comes with a blue screen which attaches to the back of the light box with a velcro strip. However it reminds me of a passport screen. Fortunately that is easy to overcome …. I will just have to get some printed cloth or strips of wallpaper cut offs and stick them to the back for variety.

WHY I LIKE THE KIT :

• Everything packs away neatly and you can take it anywhere with you.
• Slim bag and its all very light weight.
• Enables me to overcome the bad lighting in my house especially when I am shooting at night.
• The entire kit was cheap ~ € 29!
• The camera support frame enables me to capture sharp photos all the time, and eliminates blurs.

THINGS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER :

• The lights could have been made to be battery opertated as well to enable the system to be REALLY portable. At the moment “portable” means it has to still be near a power source.
• At times the lights are far too bright and it gives me horridly over exposed pictures, especially when I am working with objects with reflective surfaces. Sigh. If only the lamps came with dimmers.