[LaLD 101] Pampers Lightbox

Last weekend I finally finished my light box, and the results were pretty good! In one of the comments, Camshaft Chris asked if I could show some more shots of the lightbox itself to show how I made it, so I took some pictures of it in the hopes that it can help you guys. Anyone with babies, put these boxes to good use! Reuse, reduce, recycle.

I started off by taping it up fully extended to gain more space and have more or less a cube shape. I then cut holes in the top, bottom, and sides, leaving about an inch on each edge for strength. As I think you can see below, I got a little over zealous and cut out the back as well, only to realize my mistake when it was already open.

After taping the back up to close it again, I added additional strips of cardboard cut from the discard pieces in order to strengthen the rim at the top. It got pretty weak because of the direction of the currugation in the cardboard. Despite looking terrible, so far it’s holding up admirably.

Then I simply taped sheets of printer paper to the openings to act as light diffusers, ending up with this.

At first I taped together some sheets of printer paper to act as the photography surface, but the seams would show up in the pictures, no matter how carefully I taped them together. You can see that pretty well in the photo below.

To fix this, I bought a large sheet of thick paper at Michaels for a buck, cut it to size, and now it looks much nicer! No more seams!

Lastly, I added some cheap push light LED strips I got for $6.99 at a discount store, and both of them together give some pretty decent light. It’s a little blue, but nothing some color correction can’t fix.

The next step is replacing the printer paper sides and top with tracing paper to let through a little more light.

So there you go. My sub-$10 light box! Screw you, $70 Foldio!

Let me know if you have any more questions or recommendations on improving it and improving my photos in general!