December 30, 2007
Low-cost IKEA light tent
This weekend I built a light tent to take better glamour shots of Tania's selfmade plush toys and some of my past projects. Lots of plans for light boxes float around: Instructables has light box projects using cardboard boxes and plastic buckets; the Make Blog links to Bill Huber's PVC light box, made out of PVC pipe and a bed sheet. As I was getting ready to drive to the local hardware store to get supplies for the PVC frame, I realized that you can probably get a sturdy metal frame from IKEA for the same price as some sections of PVC pipe. Hurray for economies of scale.
Here then is the low cost IKEA light tent:
Items from Ikea:
1 - ANTONIUS laundry bag frame. $7
1 - SOVA twin bedsheet. $3
2 - FAS clip-on lamps w/ E26 socket. $10 ea.
2 - SPARSAM Bulbs (75W equiv., 15W energy saver, 950 lumens). $4 ea.
Items from any office store:
Box of large binder clips. $3
22x28" posterboard, various colors. $4
Ikea parts:
(sheets didn't fit, and there's and extra extension cord in the picture)
Assembly is trivial: put the laundry bag frame together; drape the sheet over it; secure the sides of the sheet to the frame with large binder clips; slide a poster board into frame; attach it on the upper back cross bar with another binder clip from the outside. Clip the Fas lights onto the frame (they only like to stay put on the wider side of the frame profile). Done.
One downside to this tent setup is that you will have copious amounts of extra fabric spilling over the desk and floor below. To improve on the design, Tania sewed a custom-fit cover from a second SOVA flat sheet that slides over the frame - this is a good deal of extra work, but the result is much cleaner looking:
The most expensive items, and the ones I'm least satisfied with so far, are the lights. A wider reflector, the option of using brighter bulbs, and more flexible clipping mechanisms would be nice. I toyed with the idea of using adjustable arm desk lamps (think Pixar's Luxo), but those would have taken up too much space on the table.
Here are some test shots:
