I recently ordered an ABR800 and found another reason to love Alien Bees…  their boxes make for great DIY lightboxes!  I was reading a recent blog on how to create your own macro studio and thought, why not actually try it?  So I did.

Like any true photog & blogger combo would do, the entire process was documented.  First, I was reading the Strobist Blog which had some great information.  Mostly, I admire the DIY folks and stand in awe of their ability to achieve really great results from next to nothing.  But something struck me with this project, especially as it is something that I truly need.

The Strobist blog says that it cost them $10 (with a bit of a stretch).  Mine cost $1.  That of course is assuming that you have all of the items already, which I did.  I used the ABR800 box, which with the top flaps removed it was about 12” x 12” x 18” (if I remember correctly).  I also had some plain white paper from a large easel pad that was at work (the department was going to toss it out!).  We already had tape as well.  So really, I just needed some posterboard and then I would be set.  I ran up to Publix and got 2 sheets for $1, came home, and started cuttin’.

First, I have to admit that this took me two tries.  Normally I wouldn’t mention it except that the first time around I made the cutout too large so the box was too flimsy.  Also, I had cut the top, which I didn’t really need to do.  So before you get started, get a tape measure and also figure out which area of the box allows the box to sit most steadily.

Grab your measuring tape and measure out where you want to cut.  Given the size of my box, I measured out 1 ½” from the edge on all sides.  I cut out three sides but in reality, you could get away with cutting out the left and right sides.

Should you opt to cut all three sides, you should have something close to this:

Next, grab the paper (obviously you need to get something that will allow light to come through) and put it on the areas that were cut out.  I chose to put the paper inside of the box but I doubt it matters as long as light is allowed to come through.

I then took the posterboard, cutting it to fit the inside, and placed a sheet of it under the top panel of the box.  The Strobist blog made mention of that and how the reflective surface of the posterboard would help with the lighting inside of the box.  I then took the other sheet of posterboard and cut it to fit long ways. It was placed along the back and bottom panels, with the curve in the back similar to a cyc wall.

For shooting, that was rather simple.  For you Nikon folks, CLS works great here.  I placed a single SB-800 facing the left side of the box (TTL + 2).  The onboard was set to TTL -2 to put some light on the front of the object, but not too much.  I would have really liked to put another light on the right but didn’t have one handy to use.  Still, I was pleased with the result.  The below images were shot with a D80 and a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, hand held.

Here is the setup shot for the above images.

Total credit to the fine folks at the Strobist blog for this idea and their fine write-up.  It was really fun to try it myself and now I have something that is actually functional which only cost me a $1.  Can’t really beat that.