Mothers Miniatures

My mother has, for as long as I can recall, collected Miniatures. I can still smell the compounding combination of hay,wood and candy apples as my sister and I would accompany my mother to the Craft Shows in New Jersey. We would scout the booths for unique and "cute" miniatures. Each show, she would let my sister and I pick one each that we liked and she would put it in her collection. The time has come, however, where some of these must go as the "miniature" design does not "go" with the new feel of our home. So, I am selling them on Ebay. I took it upon myself to give them justice by tring to take respectable photo's. Not satisfied with simply "Point-click-sigh", I built a light box. Taking a page out of google results for such designs, it was in the end quite simple to construct. It was an after thought that I should have catalogued each step of the DIY project but it was really a build as you go endeavor.

In short, all you need is the following:
1. Cardboard Box (size depending on objects)
2.Exacto Blade or Really Good Scissors
3.Double Sided Tape
4.Poster-board paper (WHITE)
5.Shop Lights ( Clip Lights purchased at Home Depot for $5. Can't go wrong)
6.Tri Pod
7. Dimmer connected to one or both of the lights for versatility.
8.Soft fabric. I used some left over cotton fabric from Walmart. Any will do depending on effect of lighting you want.

To Construct:
1. On flat surface, tape flaps of box straight and together so that there are no folded edges.
2: Cut out 2 sides and top of Box. Leave bottom and back.
3. Measure and Tape Poster board to cover inside of box, with the exception of cut-outs.
4. Measure and drap fabric on open sides to cover tightly and completely. No Hangover fabric so you don't have shadows. (I stapled the first piece and then taped each to it)
5. Position lights in desired locations (I did top and left side. To bounce light back, I took left-over Posterboard on the opposite open-fabric side)
6. Position Tripod for Macro zoom so that the corners and edges are blurred.
7. Use dimmer to enhance or lessen object shadow. (Play with Exposure and Aperture. I set my D40x to M and for the most part had the Shutter at 1/50; Aperture at F7.1 with 0.0Exposure between 40-52mm

Here are the results: