26 Photos Taken In $20 Lightboxes

What kind of photos can you get out of a cardboard box wrapped in some paper? You'd be amazed. For this week's Shooting Challenge, we asked you to scrap together your own cheap lightbox. The results were fantastic.

WINNER: Headless

I built the lightbox on Saturday. I shot a bunch of very pedestrian things. On Sunday, I started by cleaning the house and waiting for inspiration to strike. As I was putting my wife's coat over a chair in the living room, I knocked over a statue behind the chair. It broke. It was my wife who suggested I shoot it in the light box. I shot the two pieces in the lightbox with both the head and the statue in focus in separate shots.I went on to take and edit more, fine shots, but my wife convinced me to return to the shot of the statue and head with the head in focus. The shot is dark and funny, and my wife should get the credit for it. Lightboxes are not for me. Thanks Honey! 50 mm, f/2.5, 1/320 sec, ISO 100
- Rob Huber

Coyote

This shot is of an coyote skull I've had for a while. I aged it by soaking it over night in tea and by scrawling on it with pencil, then erasing it. For lighting I used 2 45W, 5500 K soft white bulbs and shot the photo with my tripod-mounted Nikon D70 camera with a 50mm 1:1.8D Nikkor lense at 200 ISO, F13, with a 1/2 second shutter speed with remote shutter release. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.
- Omar Chapa

Duck Duck Goose

My husband built me a light box and still have five minutes to spare to go to our friend's house to watch the game! He'd done his job and left me to do mine. I found the brightest part of our house. I used natural light from a window and a home made reflector to light the light box on all three sides. I tried out all sort of things in the box...from black piggies to whisky flasks but in the end chose a goose's egg which is quite simple but I think effective. Used my Canon T2i and the macro lens.
- Georgina Lawrence

Smoke & Fire

When we moved into our office we installed a white cyc stage for our use and for use by friends and clients. I haven't had much chance to actually use the stage myself and was waiting for a good Shooting Challenge to submit to; this seemed to be the perfect match. 5DMark III. Canon 24-70 f2.8L, ISO 1250, 1/160. f10
- Jon Michael Kondrath

Clean Doggie

I built my light-box with a 20'x20' moving box and a shower liner. Canon T2i, 55mm, f/2.8
- Diego Jimenez

Big Daddy

I shot this Bioshock "Big Daddy" because I love the design and feel of these guys in the Bioshock franchise. They are so huge and heavy looking but also have that kind heart mushed inside that metal body for their "little sisters". This was a great item to add to my collection of toys and action figures, and every time I see it on my desk I smile knowing I have a Big Daddy guarding my computer. Canon 7D, Canon EF 28 - 135mm, ISO 200
- Mike Gallardo

Red Elephant

I used a cardboard box, white sheet, and 2 desk lamps, and off camera flash. Canon T3i, Sigma 50mm f1.4 EX DG HSM. Shot at f/4, 1/60, ISO 400.
- Michael Standridge

Cellphone + Lightbox

To be honest I came home late Friday night to see my girlfriend had constructed her light box during the day, and left it setup before leaving to stay the weekend at her mothers. Incidentally she also took our camera, so these were shot with my Evo phone's camera. I thought the images looked decent though so wanted to submit!
- Preston Broussard

Bobble Spidey

I'm a huge comic book fan and have several Spider-man action figures around house. Including this bobble-head Spidey that I got from my girlfriend. I thought it might look neat to pose him under some decent light with the lightbox. I had to take a couple of shots with the same camera settings just to make sure his head wasn't moving during the shots. One slight table bump and I'd have to wait and start all over again. Canon 550d, Sigma 50mm 1.4, ISO 100. F 2.8, 1/40
- David Rusho

Rubber Band Ball

After hearing about this contest from a friend, I went down to my dorm room's recycling room and liberated a cardboard box. Construction of the box was a group effort, and the rubber band ball was on a friends desk. Shot with a Sony Alpha 33 (SLT-A33) using a 50mm F1.8 lens (DT 50mm F1.8 SAM)
ISO 400 1/160 second at /1.8 50mm
- Kyle Trusler

WINNER: Headless

(Click the photo to see it without a crop.)

Granted, not everyone used a homemade rig this week (which was fine—that was totally allowed in the rules). But I'm perpetually surprised by the quality of jury rigged photo props. Chances are, if there's a professional effect you've always wanted to try but thought you couldn't afford, there's somebody who has already built the thing from bent coat hangers and a few bargain bin light bulbs. See the full gallery below and the big shots on flickr.

View the gallery

These Pictures of NYC From a Bicycle's Perspective Are Beautiful

There are all kinds of ways to get great, clever pictures. You can strap your DSLR to the frame of your bike and get amazing angles at high speeds, for instance. That's what photographer Tom Olesnevich did with his project NYC By Bike" and the results are fantastic.

The pictures were taken with a Nikon D40 attached to the bike's frame with a GorillaPod and triggered with a remote, Olesnevich told PetaPixel. And it only fell off and almost got crushed by an semi once! Olesnevich is no stranger to angles like this, and man do they look fantastic. You can see more over at Tom's site. [Tom Olesnevich via PetaPixel]

Images by Tom Olesnevich, used with permission

This Vintage Style Camera Is Made From Legos, Cardboard, and Duct Tape

Dominique Vankan wanted to try out some old-school photography, we're talking really old-school, a early 1900s process called Autochrome Lumi re. Appartnely he decided not to find an old camera to do it, and instead build one out of modern wonders including cardboard, Legos, and duct tape.

The camera isn't just for show, of course. It actually works, and takes some pretty neat looking pictures to boot. They aren't the highest quality, but that isn't the point. We're talking a makeshift camera working with a process that's a century old, and considering that, the outcome is righteous. Who needs Instagram filters, right? [Flickr via MAKE via Neatorama]

If Sandy damaged your pictures, your iPhone may be able to help preserve them...

In recent days, you've probably seen and heard a lot about where I live. I live on Staten Island. About 20 fellow Staten Islanders were killed. Many neighborhoods have been destroyed. Some schools are still closed. The restaurant that my family visited on October 19 is gone. Sandy was not nice to us.

Volunteers have been coming to help with the clean-up. There's been plenty of criticism about the lack of electricity for thousands. [Fortunately, my power was turned on about after three days.] It's still difficult to get gasoline for the cars.

So where does the iPhone come in? While digging through the debris many are finding old pictures that have been destroyed, or at least damaged. I have been suggesting that folks turn to Operation Photo Rescue to find info about how they can preserve their photos.

Unfortunately, the problem for many will be that they don't have access to a scanner. We're trying to work on a plan to help, but in the meantime, my suggestion is to use your iPhone, or any other smartphone with a good camera. The photo you see is one that I took of my son more than twenty years ago. It's safe, I'm only using it as an example.

Without using any special App, you can take a picture of a picture very quickly...using your iPhone. The quality may not be up to your usual standard, but, in a pinch it's pretty good. At least it's something. You can use other software later on to enhance it using your iPhone or a computer. The fastest way to preserve your family memory, as far as I can tell, is to use your iPhone as a quick scanner and preserve the image. Worry about elaborate retouching later. Get the digital image now, retouch later. 

This is also a very good time to make use of space provided in iCloud. If you haven't created an iCloud account, this is a good time to do so. Keeping your files in a "cloud" will make sure that you will have them, regardless of what happens to your own equipment. Also, remember that your digital images, if you used iCloud, are safe.

I know that my analog friends insist that the old ways aren't dead. The problem is that prints, film, and slides are much more difficult to preserve.

If you know someone who might need help recording their family's images, please help them.

Thank you.

Instagram on the Web

One of the things that always bothered me about using Instagram was sharing images. Now, you can share your Instagram images easily online. If you have an account you can now, or you will be able to do it soon, view your pictures online. For example, my address is http://instagram.com/joelheffner. [My account became active earlier today.] They say that if you have an Instagram account it should be up and running within about a week. Check with Instagram about your privacy settings. It's a very welcome change...at least to me.

Incidentally, if you look at my own pictures on Instagram, you may notice that I rarely use any special effects. I guess I'm kinda old fashioned.