Quick and Dirty $2 Macro Studio

$2 Easy DIY Macro Studio

This is going to be a quick little tutorial to showcase how you can build a diffused studio for macro / still life photography. The reason I say $2 is even if you have to buy the tissue paper and poster board you should be able to build this for about 2 bucks. All the camera equipment shown is not needed as you can even use this macro studio with desk lamps and a camera phone. The idea is to provide a neutral seamless background and diffused warm light on the item being photographed.

Materials Required

1. Cardboard Box
2. White Tissue Paper
3. White Poster Board

Tools Required
Tape
Something to cut cardboard with (Knife, scissors)

Step 1: Step one: cut a hole in the box...

Well not really step 1, step one is getting all your materials and tools together, So I suppose step 2 would technically be cutting the holes in the box.

If you are only planning on illuminating from the sides, Cut your holes on the left and right walls. If you are going to add a top light, the third hole will be on the roof side. As you can see from my example pictures I only lit from the sides and got decent results.

###Step 2

Tape a single layer of tissue paper over the holes. Try not to overlap as multiple layers may add odd linear shadows that may show up in your pictures. My tissue paper was in a 32-inch width for wrapping packages.

Image Notes

1. tape here
2. curved posterboard
3. Seamless Tissuepaper
4. tape here
5. cheap radio popper
6. the table this box came in.
7. Cannon T3i DSLR

Step 3 cut your poster board so that it is as wide as the back and bottom of your box. Try not to crease or fold it as the back corner transition should be smooth. This curvature is what gives the illusion that the background is seamless.

I put a bit of tape at the top and front edge to hold it in place but the curved part is unsupported.

Step 4 (optional)

I found that it was helpful to leave the side box flaps to reduce light from the side flashes going directly into the camera, This may or may not have affected the results.

The results

The top picture is my film Rebel EOS with some spare lenses.

YN462-II flash camera left half power 45* to subject with a card bounce at 45* up
YN462-II flash camera right half power 45* to subject with a card bounce at 45* up
Triggered with YN603c transceivers (radio flash poppers).
Canon T3i (body) with YN603c transceiver in the hotshoe ( thingy on top)
EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II (lens)
Aperture ƒ/6.3
Focal range 55.0 mm
1/200 shutter speed
200 ISO

The sandwich I was eating when I had the notion to build this.

If you look carefully you can see the tissue paper reflection in the film.

This is a Near IR digital camera that I made by removing the IR Cutfilter from the A630 adding a screw lens bezel and a 700 nm wavelength filter.

Image Notes

1. the focal point was center weighted shadows are controlled by altering flash or light angle from the sides