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| © Barry Seidman |
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Have you tried hosting an online, eBay-style garage sale and nothing sold? It may have been lackluster photos, and the solution could be as easy as a studio lighting kit -- one custom-designed for shooting small tabletop products.
What to Look For
Light Tents: All you need for this is a light tent, two lights, and stands to hold the lights. Why a light tent? The most difficult objects to shoot in tabletop photography are reflective, such as glassware and polished metal. Light tents create a fully diffused, nondirectional light that minimizes unwanted reflections and softens shadows. (Tents provide excellent lighting for objects that aren't reflective, too.)
If you're new to this, practice light tent technique using a white sheet as a tent and table lamps for lights. You will soon grow tired of the sheet's folds, wrinkles, and nubby surface weave showing up your backgrounds and want to upgrade to the real thing.
HOW BIG? We've chosen an ample 4x4 footer because an oversized tent will still produce excellent results, but one that's too small is useless.
This Setup
The Tent: We selected the Lastolite Cubelite (A) for its many features, such as: interior alligator clips for holding cloth, paper, or vinyl backdrops; removable bottom panel so the tent can be set over stationary objects; easy collapsibility; multiple shooting windows; rugged carrying case; and reasonable $203 street price.
Lights: We recommend monolights, and the smallest possible (see following page for more on monolights). If your tabletop outfit is something you will use only occasionally, shop for components that will fold up compactly, taking up as little closet space as possible. A good choice: Elinchrom's new D-Lite (B) as our studio light (no street price as of press time). The D-Lite To Go sets include two tiny 200 or 400 Ws lights, plus power cords, PC cords, and a sturdy but very compact storage case.
Tabletop Tips
Some light tents are said to have "sweet spots" for lights. Experiment with the relative positions, angles, and powers of the lights to locate that spot. When found, lighting within the tent will be most diffused and directionless. It's easier to find this sweet spot if you're using continuous light sources.
Perfectly lit products often require much positioning and repositioning to locate the orientation that shows off the object to best effect. For jewelry and other small items, have plenty of small wedges and dabs of putty on hand to help you correctly orient the subject relative to the overall light.
Consider adding a black floor to your tent to help establish edge lines. This trick was used for the martini glass shown here.
If not much depth of field is required, don't aim your lights directly at the sides of the light tent, but place your light tent in a small room and bounce your lights off the surrounding white walls. In essence, you're making a double light tent, which will provide added control over glare and other unwanted reflections.
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