PC monitor as light box for photos

[lorwolff]

I have been trying to take pictures of my plates.
Here in the Pacific Northwest it's not always possible to find natural light. lol
I have a pretty large computer monitor, app 20 x 10 inches, and was thinking that if I could get a nice white lit up background, I could stand the pieces in front of it.

I know I will have to mess around with my camera and other lighting, but just wondering if anyone here has tried this.

[lorimendenhall]

why not get a photo tent with some professional lights? not very expensive and works great.

[Mike Jordan]

The monitor idea won't work very well. It would probably work to get a silhouette of your glass, but if you light your glass so it exposes correctly, the screen will be under exposed and not white anymore... if you could see it all from the glare of the light reflecting back off of it.

If you don't want to buy a light tent you can buy material to make one. You can get Sport Nylon at JoAnne's (it's like rip stop nylon without the little zig-zag stitches all through and is very close to the nylon used in softboxes and umbrellas) and a couple of yards can make a pretty good light tent. Or what works pretty good to and what I used it for was to make light panels with PVC pipe. A lot of people use the work lights from Home Depot or Lowes but I've never cared for them because they are dangerously hot for close work and they are also very intense lights that create a lot of hot spots on anything reflective, even though diffusion material. Flash is better but if you don't have them, cool lights are good, like florescent lights, either the long tubes or the curly energy saver type. You just need to get enough to create the amount of light you need. I've done banks of 4 florescent tube lights. You can create a lot of light with two banks of the 2' long tubes. I've also seen people make light banks from 8 or more of the curly type florescent type bulbs mounted in a box shape that can be positioned and pointed. Of course you can get the big aluminum reflectors (get the biggest ones you can find) and put bulbs in them as well. You will have to do some color correction with florescent lights, but that can be done in camera or in your photo editing software if you have it. If you google light tents, light panels, light banks, etc., you can get some ideas.

A lot of how you make due with lights also depends on the type of camera you have and how much it lets you do things manually, like set the shutter speed and f-stop. If you can't set those manually it's hard to take low light pictures.

And there is plenty of sunshine in the NW, you just have to go up about 20,000 feet during the rainy season.

Mike

[JestersBaubles]

Even if the lighting idea worked, I believe you would end up with a funky looking "wavy" white background because of the refresh rate of the monitor.

Dana W.

[S.TImmerman]

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I bought a varitone backdrop from phototech when i made my first rod bowl. I used a sunny room and taped the screen on the wall and draped it on a table. I do have lights - i think the trick is to use a long exposure and a tripod for the camera. I realize this bowl is not perfect. Im learning as i go! the second photo has a simple light under the upside down bowl to show what it would look like as a light cover. .