I Got Myself a Light Box Thing!

I've often wondered about the value of a light box when it comes to photographing my miniatures.  Not because I'm some Golden Daemon artist or anything.  I just wondered if they would help.  Up until now I've simply used the lighting in my utility room, which seems to work best for photographing my models.  Of course, this invariably means that they have the paint station as a background.  So thinking about a lighting box is clearly nothing more than a pretentious faff on my part.

I looked about online and saw lots of examples with prices that ranged, frankly, from the acceptable to the...well...ridiculous.  So with next door to no knowledge about such things, I decided to give up looking.  After all, the strip light in my utility room seemed to be good enough so far.

And then I did a search on eBay.  And I saw one for less than six quid.  So I figured I'd give it a go.  Now, please don't put a comment below asking me to supply a link for the seller.  It came from China, and post free at that, so there were a few weeks between placing the order and having it arrive.  This didn't bother me in the slightest.  And, admittedly, it's arrival was a few weeks ago as work has been incredibly busy.  Now, there are many sellers in this price bracket on eBay, but the one I ordered from didn't appear when I checked a few moments ago.  So if you want to get one yourself, search light box in eBay.  Honestly, it couldn't be simpler...

And here's what you get...
It comes with a USB cable to power the strip of super tiny LED's.  I've got to be honest, when I saw it, I had no idea if I'd wasted my money on something that wasn't going to be very bright, but I gave it a go none the less.  And once you've popped the incredibly secure studs together, connected the cable to your device of choice, you end up with the following setup...
The box comes with two backdrops, back and white.  There are two punched holes in one end of the backdrops which slips over the two 'pegs' that hold them in place.  Now, if you're using a 16:9 ratio on your phone as I do, you're going to see the white of the sides of the box.  Not a problem if you crop your model, but be warned.  You're not going to get a Sylvaneth Treelord Ancient inside this box and be able to photograph it all in one without getting the box walls int the photo.

Anyhoo, without further ado, this is the result on two figures I've painted in the last few days.



And here's what a photo looks like in full widescreen glory...
And the same photo after cropping...



I then decided to paint an in progress shot of my next poxwalker...

And then, just to throw some more shots into the mix, this is the kind of photos I normally post, courtesy of my utility room light and my paint station backdrop.




The light box is a fantastic purchase at £6 ish.  It certainly makes your models pop.  But it can make your mistakes pop just as much, especially, if like me, your lighting where you paint isn't as bright as that in the light box itself.  Am I glad I purchased it?  Totally.  Would I have been disappointed if it hadn't worked?  At that price, no.  It packs away into a bag, takes only moments to set up, and works a treat.

But I do like my old paint station background as well...

Comments

  1. That looks a bit like the one I bought.
    For that price it's totally worth it imho.
    I'm still trying to find a way to get a decent background though, one that doesn't involve using expensive software.

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    Replies
    1. I believe you can get a great background standing your model on a corner of your gaming surface and a background image on your laptop sat behind it...

      Delete
  2. Got one of these a couple of years back - no buyer's remorse here!

    ReplyDelete

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