Step your photography game up without breaking the bank
You want to start taking photos of your product - you might want to selling, or you just want to show it off on social media. You’ve looked online for all these different options on photo light boxes and ring lights and backdrops and the price is adding up.
My first photobox was this massive crate.
I had to assemble it every time I wanted to use it. It probably took about an hour to set up between all the poles and the zippers. Not to mention it was HUGE - so I could only take pictures in my living room or garage. It was cumbersome to say the least.
The lights were fantastic (sometimes even too bright) - but the hassle to set it up made me never want to use it.
My next setup was just a posterboard taped to the wall. It got the job done, but it was hard to get good consistent lighting. The background colors were always inconsistent.
So I looked at some smaller benchtop light boxes, but they were so expensive and still seemed like a pain to set up and took up too much space in storage.
I’m going to show you the setup I have curated that is (1) affordable, (2) versatile, (3) easy to setup and (4) compact. Below is a list of all the items I use in my photobooth. It adds up to about $55, but the great thing is, is that you don’t have to buy everything on this list. Curate it to your needs!
Selfie light: $12.10 x 2 = $24.20 Amazon
White poster board: $0.97 x 2 = $1.94 Walmart
Black poster board: $1.56 x 2 = $3.12 Walmart
28x40” tri-fold display board: $2.97 Walmart
14x22” tri-fold display board: $2.64 Walmart
12x18” foam sheets: $6.86 Walmart
Magnetic board: $12.99 Amazon
A sheet of stainless steel might be cheaper at a hardware store, just FYI
Six paper clips
Painters/Masking tape
Tissues
most images of models are linked to their respective listings for download
The first thing I did was cut the black and white posterboard down to size to fit each of the three panels on the large tri-fold board. I keep them held on with paper clips so I can quickly swap them out depending on which backdrop I need.
Cut the posterboards down enough so that you can still close up the tri-fold and store it away easily.
When you’re ready to take pictures, just slide the backdrop down that you need.
If it won’t stay in place, use a small piece of painters tape under the front edge.
Using white vs black for the backdrop will obviously depend on the item you’re taking pictures of. As for the sidewalls, play around with it and see which one gives you your more preferred lighting! They both behave differently.
Now if you’re taking pictures of magnets, leave the backdrop up.
Slide the metal board behind your backdrop and you’re good to go!
Let’s talk about those selfie lights now - I keep mine on full brightness and the coldest temperature. Of course, you can adjust those as you need. You can also see I have tissues taped over them. It just adds more diffusion - especially helpful with flat, shiny surfaces.
Now where do you put them? It changes every time! Move them around and see how they cast shadows. Two is better than one because it helps cancel out those shadows. Use the side & back walls to your advantage to bounce light instead of aiming it directly at your item - it will help a lot with glare. Sometimes I have both set up like in the picture, and sometimes I have one clipped to my phone to follow my camera.
If you have any harsh overhead lighting messing with you, you can actually drape something over the tri-fold board like parchment paper or a thin sheet to help with it.
Now let’s talk about the mini tri-fold. This is great for smaller objects and takes up even less space than the larger tri-fold. It actually fits inside the packaging the foam sheets come in so it’s easy to keep everything together.
Again, cut the foam sheets down to fit the inside of the tri-fold board so you can fold the sides in. The sides don’t reach very far, but they will still help with bouncing light.
Personally, I like the foam backdrops over the poster board, but they both work great. I just prefer the softness the foam gives. It’s also easier to have a stack of different color foam sheets over large poster boards.
However - these sheets LOVE to collect anything - dust, dirt, pet hair, etc so keep that painters tape nearby to tap it all off. The darker colors also show scratches easily, so keep that in mind when moving your objects around on it.
OK - the photo booth is finally set up - but what do you do on your actual camera - there are a handful of tips here to get the best, most professional looking shot. The screenshots below are from a Samsung Galaxy camera, but I’m going to hope other models have similar settings.
Aspect Ratio - if you’re uploading to a site that prefers a certain aspect ratio, set that first. Don’t spend all your time cropping photos.
Zoom - Your best results are going to be from shooting in 2x or 3x zoom. Getting too close can cast shadows or affect your lighting. You want to shoot your images from behind your lights. It will also prevent parts of your product being blurry. Depending on your camera software, being close will activate auto focus on one part instead of the whole item.
Motion photo - turn this off unless you want to extract a GIF or video for your product. You’re probably going to take a ton of photos, so give your storage a break.
Exposure setting - this is the most important thing!! Tap on your item and drag that little sun icon left or right. For a white backdrop, you want to go right (lighter). For black backdrops, pull it left (darker). Most of the time, going all the way to one end gives the best results, but it depends on your lighting. Look past your camera to the actual object and compare real life color to the color on the screen. Observe how even and bright (or dark) your backdrop is. Are there hard shadows or glare? Adjust your lighting.
And that’s it! Now you have some great photos for your social media or store front! Below are the screenshots relevant to the tips above and then at the bottom are some shots I took both on the posterboard and foam setup.
