Harvey Loc: Pioneer, CA

I have been interested in one of these for quite some time for still life and close up photography - do any of you use these for your macro works?

larryzplace Loc: Elk Grove Village Illinois

I have used a glass plate with colored paper lit below... In many cases it works fine :)

Nikonian72 Loc: Chico CA

Post an image of the lightbox you are discussing.

Harvey Loc: Pioneer, CA

I have looked into doing a DIY box I have found several on Youtube.
Basically a 2 ft square box - open in the front - solid in the back - with large cut outs on each side & top covered with light cloth or tissue paper - lights on the sides as well as the top. for 3 directional lighting as wanted.
Black or white craft board for the bottom rolling slightly up the back.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

Sounds like it would work pretty well. Lots of folks here use home-made diffusers of various types.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

I would imagine several have constructed something like what you are thinking of. See this recent link: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-357882-1.html

mawyatt Loc: Clearwater, Florida

I use soft boxes and umbrellas for some of the macro/micro work I do (silicon chip images). The soft boxes are 2' square from Interfit. They aren't too expensive, ~$25 from B&H.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

The image of the set-up is enough to send a novice running for cover and never looking back! :lol:

Nikonian72 Loc: Chico CA

Mike suffers from acute GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). Fortunately, it is not contagious. :)

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

Says who???? I catch it from people all the time!
I have been browsing Amazon's dusty halls, and there are a number of 'tents' which they sell pretty reasonably, for just this kind of thing.

Harvey Loc: Pioneer, CA

To me this is a perfect example of acute GAS effecting a person with deep pockets who has the drive to archive goals that will meet their expectations.

pfrancke Loc: cold Maine

:thumbup:

mawyatt Loc: Clearwater, Florida

Yes I suffer from GAS, just ask my wife :>)
But on a more serious note, this setup is for taking images of silicon chips with resolutions in the micron range (actually sub-micron). These chips sometimes have tiny (40 microns) spherical solder balls that act like tiny spherical mirrors which reflect everything and require extremely uniform lighting from all directions. The setup attempts to create a spherical light source to the dual light tents which further diffuse the light into a uniform light source for the subject chip. I tried so many different configurations of lighting, and even polarized lighting, I don't even want to think of the time spent over the many years.

Anyway this was meant to show that soft boxes are useful for macro work, not scare anyone off :>)

The CTO of IBM told me they have a $50M+ photographic lab dedicated to chip imaging and haven't been able to produce the images I created for them, well actually we design the chips and IBM fabricates them for us, then I take the chip images. We both have the many chip images hanging in our executive conference rooms. I am sure they could do this if I told them how and they got the same equipment, it's not that expensive either. Most of the stuff is cheap eBay, even the custom lenses are put together with mostly eBay stuff. Examples below.

mawyatt Loc: Clearwater, Florida

That's where I got the 2 tents, they were really cheap. I can't remember the exact price but the small tent was less than $20 I recall.

Harvey Loc: Pioneer, CA

YES -I also suffered a GAS attack - I ordered this light box kit from Amazon $49.00- for the price I could not resist.
http://www.amazon.com/LimoStudio-Table-Photography-Studio-Light/dp/B008YKYB08/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1451772609&sr=8-19&keywords=light+box+photography