Budget Light Box Setup

By budget I don't mean free or nearly so. Rather, as I was looking into getting a light box set up, most self contained units or all in one deals ran about $100. Finally I looked into separate parts and I managed to get a light box set up for only $40.



The picture above is the brand name of the light box. It's a material and set up like a pop up tent. The kind that are all folded and twisted up and you toss it out and it springs into shape. I found this out as I pulled it out and started to unfold it and it comically sprang open and hit me in the face.

As you can see it comes with 4 backdrops: White, Black, Red and Navy. It also comes with a piece that velcros onto the front and has a slit so you can fully enclose the light box and place a camera lens through the slit. Theoretically you could fold it back up and put it in the carrying case. Unfortunately I didn't pay close enough attention to how it was folded up and couldn't figure out how to reverse the process. That's okay, I have it in a place downstairs where it's permanently set up.

This is a two pack of LED lights. They're nice and bright. The power cords on them are kind of short, so an extension cord would be useful.

Both these items were $20 each on Amazon.com. I'll provide links below if anyone is interested in buying them.

This shows the scale of the unit. It's 24" high. That's a Knight Castigator in it. Many of the package deal units were much smaller, usually around 10"-12".

Here's a test shot of my WiP Castigator. Keep in mind this is just shot with the camera on my iPhone. Speaking of which...

I got this too. Also $20. It includes an octopus tripod and clip on wide angle and macro lenses. I tested out the macro lens on the Castigator.

It let's you get in really close. Again, all with my iPhone.

So the whole set up cost me $60. (free shipping with Amazon Prime) $40 just for the light box set up. So if you're looking for a cheap set up without having to build it yourself out of a cardboard box, I recommend this.