Glance at the summary firstThe summary from the end of the lesson, as a road map before you start reading.
For a small product, a complete studio is set up at the end of a table with a tent, boards and a single light of high color rendering. The tent wraps the product softly but can flatten its form; darkening one side, or setting up a lit side and a shadow side with V-flats, brings the form back. The setup record makes it possible to rebuild the same light every day, and the tone of the hand in the frame tests the light's color.
Learning goal
For small products, you will be able to set up a studio that fits on the end of a table, made of a few foam boards, a light tent and a single light. You will see what the light tent's soft light wrapping the product from every side makes easier and what it flattens; by leaving one side of the tent brighter you will give the product its form back. By joining two foam boards like an open book, you will make a board that stands up and works as a reflector or a darkener. By looking at the single light's color rendering, you will choose a source that will show both the product's color and the color of the hand holding it correctly. By photographing and noting the arrangement you set up, you will rebuild the same light the next day in a few minutes.
The question
In the workshop's back room, the craftswoman can spare only the end of a worktable; the rest of the table is full of tile paints, brushes and plates waiting to dry. Your friend remembers yesterday's setup: three lights, two stands, a curved card a meter and a half long. Setting it up and packing it away for every new bowl takes an hour, and the craftswoman's budget doesn't stretch to a lighting kit. The end of a table, a lamp and a few boards that can be bought at a stationery shop. Is building a studio from cheap materials really possible?
Context
In the portrait section you tried setting up a home studio in a room's corner, using white and black foam boards as a reflector, a flag and negative fill (Lesson 20.11). In the continuous light lesson you learned how accurately a light source shows colors compared with a reference light, that is, color rendering (Lesson 19.8). When first talking about the quality of light you also saw that shadows soften as the light looks bigger relative to the subject (Lesson 5.3).
A small product turns this knowledge into a big advantage. A bowl, a cup or a ring is so small that even a desk lamp or an A3 board is a big source relative to it. The light that a portrait needs a room for fits on the end of a table for a product. This lesson sets up the parts of that small studio one by one.
Simple explanation
What is a light tent for?
A light tent is a box the product is placed inside, with sides and a top made of translucent white fabric or paper; light coming from outside scatters as it passes through these walls and wraps the product from every side. There are ready-made folding tents, but cutting out three sides of a shipping box and taping tracing paper in their place does the same job. When a curved white paper is put inside, its background is ready too.
The tent's strength is wrapping the product in a light without shadows or reflections: on a glazed bowl's surface, not sharp lamps but broad, soft highlights appear. Its weakness comes from the same thing. When light comes equally from every side, the shadows that tell the product's form disappear; a bowl can look like a flat drawing, a cup like a cut cylinder. For this, giving the light from one side of the tent and leaving the other side darker, or leaning a black card inside one wall of the tent, gives the product a lit side and a shadow side again.
How are foam boards used?
A V-flat is two foam boards joined with tape along their long edges and stood up like an open book. It stands by itself, needs no stand or clamp, and is pulled to wherever you want at the end of the table. With its white side facing the product it sends light back to the shadow side; with its black side facing, it swallows the light and deepens the shadow. Two white V-flats put on either side of the product give a wrap close to a tent, while one white and one black board give a distinct form.
The boards' size is chosen according to the product: for a bowl or a perfume bottle, A3 or slightly bigger boards are enough. As the light source, a single LED panel or a desk lamp can be used; stretching tracing paper or a piece of white fabric in front of the light makes it bigger and softer. Even a small source held close to the product behaves softly, because the product is small.
How is the single light chosen, and the arrangement kept?
The single light's color is the whole studio's color. An LED or an energy-saving bulb with low color rendering shows some colors faded or shifted even when the white balance is set correctly; a glazed blue can lean toward gray, a red glaze toward brown. A source with a color rendering above ninety-five is a safe choice for product photography.
The same light is tested on skin too. Under a low-rendering light a hand can shift to a greenish or magenta yellowness that no white balance setting can fully correct; on dark skin the red and golden tones fade, on light skin the pinkness pales. Under a light with good rendering, though, the skin's warmth and the product's color stand right together in the same frame.
A setup record is photographing a shooting arrangement from above and from the side with a phone, and noting the positions of the light, the boards, the product and the camera along with their distances. Even if the end of the table is cleared every evening, the next day the same arrangement is set up in a few minutes and the products are shot in the same light. This record is the small studio's counterpart of the shooting template from the previous lesson.
Visual evidence
Your friend cuts out three sides of a shipping box, tapes tracing paper in their place and puts a curved white paper inside. They place the box at the end of the table, beside a small LED panel with high color rendering.
When they give the light equally from both sides, the bowl is soft and clean, but flat: its round body looks cut from paper. When they give the light only from the left and lean a black card inside the right wall, the bowl's right side darkens and its body becomes round again. On the glaze, instead of a sharp lamp, there is a long, soft highlight.
For a bigger plate the tent is too small. Your friend tapes two foam boards to make two V-flats, turning the white side of one to the plate and the black side of the other to the opposite side. The craftswoman holds the plate in her hand. In the test shot under the old energy-saving bulb her wheat-skinned hand is a greenish yellow; in the frame shot with the LED panel the skin's warm tone and the blue paint stains on her fingers are right together with the plate's blue. Your friend photographs the arrangement from above with the phone, writes the distances on a piece of paper and puts it in the table's drawer.
Common mistakes
Common mistakeLighting the light tent equally from every side.
The product's shadows disappear and its form flattens. The fix: give the light from one side, lean a black card on the opposite side.
Common mistakeUsing any lamp at home without looking at its color rendering.
Even if the white balance is right, the colors and the skin shift. The fix: choose a light with a color rendering above ninety-five.
Common mistakeSetting up the arrangement from memory again at every shoot.
The light and color change from day to day. The fix: photograph the setup, note the distances and set it up the next day by the record.
Summary
For a small product, a complete studio is set up at the end of a table with a tent, boards and a single light of high color rendering. The tent wraps the product softly but can flatten its form; darkening one side, or setting up a lit side and a shadow side with V-flats, brings the form back. The setup record makes it possible to rebuild the same light every day, and the tone of the hand in the frame tests the light's color.
Mini assignment
In this assignment you will set up a small product studio at the end of a table.
- Make a light tent from a shipping box and tracing paper, or prepare two V-flats by taping two foam boards.
- Photograph a small product first with light equal from both sides, then with light from one side and a black card put on the opposite side; compare the product's form in the two frames.
- Ask someone to take the product in their hand, and once they agree, shoot with two different lamps and look at the skin's color; photograph the best arrangement with your phone and note its distances.
Check yourself
- In the frame lit from one side, does the product look round or full of volume?
- Under which lamp are the skin and product colors closer to reality?
- With your setup record, in how many minutes could you rebuild the arrangement the next day?
Glossary
| Term | Short definition |
|---|---|
| Light tent | A box with sides and a top of translucent white fabric or paper that wraps the product inside it with scattered light from every side. |
| V-flat | A reflecting or darkening board made of two foam boards joined along their long edge and stood up like an open book. |
| Setup record | Photographing a shooting arrangement and noting the positions of the light, boards, product and camera along with their distances. |
Mini quiz
1. What is the light tent's weak side?
- A) It hardens the light
- B) With light equal from every side it can flatten the product's form
- C) It shifts the colors
- D) It is very expensive
2. What is done to give a bowl in the tent its form back?
- A) The light is given equally from both sides
- B) The aperture is opened
- C) The light is given from one side and a black card is leaned on the opposite side
- D) The bowl is taken out of the tent
3. How is a V-flat made?
- A) Two foam boards are taped along their long edge and stood up like an open book
- B) A board is cut in two
- C) A board is clamped to a stand
- D) A board is laid on the floor
4. Why does the hand's tone shift under a light with low color rendering?
- A) Because the white balance wasn't set
- B) Because the hand is too close
- C) Because the aperture is stopped down
- D) Because the light carries some colors only weakly, the skin pales even if the white balance is right
Answers
- B — Light wrapping evenly erases the shadows that tell the form, and the product flattens like a drawing.
- C — One-sided light and a black surface on the opposite side set up a lit side and a shadow side.
- A — The two joined boards stand up by themselves and are pulled to wherever you want.
- D — White balance corrects the light's overall color; it can't bring back the colors the light carries only weakly.
Summary card
- End of a table + light tent + foam boards + a single light = a small studio.
- The tent wraps but flattens; darken one side.
- V-flat: the white side fills, the black side deepens.
- A single light with high color rendering; the skin in the hand tests it.
- Setup record: photograph, measure, note, set it up exactly the next day.
Bridge to the next lesson
The bowls are now shot at the end of the table in a few minutes. But the jeweler neighbor at the other end of the arcade comes with a silver ring and a glass perfume bottle. When your friend puts them in the tent, on every surface of the ring the box's edges appear, and in the bottle's glass the lens itself and a bright rectangle of the LED panel. Why are bottles and jewelry so hard? The next lesson takes up controlling reflections on shiny surfaces and drawing a bottle's edges with a strip light.