Photography #1: Soft Box 1

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ljimg/myk0105.jpg

My wife and I have been getting into photography after buying the new Canon 70D. My wife would like to start taking more portraits (after being asked by several coworkers to take pics of their kids, etc). Since we don’t have a studio, and our apartment’s lighting is subpar for great picture quality, I decided to look into buying some Soft Boxes.

Here is an example of a soft box (from google pictures)….

I know you can buy some online for pretty cheap (but I’m sure they’re just that…cheap). I did some research online and decided to try to build one myself. Mostly for the fun of it.

So the journey begins….

I started by making the lighting component first. There are endless ways to do this, however I just used what I had on hand….

The box is 5” x 5” and will have 4 lights coming out at 10 degree angles from each other (towards the corners of the box)

I used a small drill bit to help set up my guides, so my Forstner Bit would be lined up accurately….

I then installed the sockets, finished the box, and wired the sockets to the extension cord…..

This is all pretty rough so far. I still have to sand it all down, and paint it black. I really just threw it together pretty quickly. I don’t want to waste the time making the wooden box really nice just in case I can’t get the rest of it to work for me. If the rest of it turns out nice, I’ll probably remake the box a little nicer. The steps will be pretty similar.

The next step will be making the actual soft box skin (the hard part). Stay tuned!!…

Source: LumberJocks.com

Photography #1: Soft Box 1