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So Ifurita's post from a while back on building a cheap light tent inspired me to have a go at putting one together. Around the same time I was finishing up a Reaper Dark Heaven figure to serve as a DnD 3.5 elf druid so I decided to take some pictures to test out the tent.

Right now, I'm using only a single light source from above - a 100W-equivalent CFL daylight bulb. The whiteness of the light is excellent, but after playing with the pictures in Photoshop for a while, I think I need more of it. I also had to set the figure up near the front of the box to get a good picture with my cheap little point-and-shoot camera, which meant I didn't get as much light thrown on the front of the figure as I would have liked (looking back on Ifurita's post, I notice he lights from the side - I'll give that a try next time). The results look promising, however, and for $10 and a couple hours of my time, I think it's well worth it. The weakest link in my mini photography is now my camera as opposed to my light source.

Anyway, on to the pics:



And one with her animal companion:



As always, C&C is welcomed.

It might just be the camera or lighting, but I think the skin tones could use more definition, especially in the face. Currently, it looks pretty flat, until you look really closely

Yup - noticed that myself, and it's the camera/lighting/both. It's almost as if the tip of her nose is slighty out of focus. I think my camera needs light reflected a bit more starkly, rather than the sort of even ambiance provided by the light tent with just the one overhead source. The "smudginess" worsened if I used the optical zoom, although if I'd been less lazy and focused manually, it might have worked better.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback - anything I can learn from this set of pics should help me improve the next!

It seems like the wrong part of the picture is in focus. The front of the base is clear, but the figure isn't. It might have to do with where you focused the camera. On the other hand, it seems that the quality of light if very good.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head there Ifurita. As I understand it, my camera focuses with a little IR beam to determine distance. Pre-tent, this seemed to work OK (ie I never thought about it). Inside the tent? Perhaps not. Which means I'll have to figure out how to manually focus my dear old Canon.

Thanks again for the help, and for putting me on to the whole idea in the first place!