adventures in lightboxing

I had a wild hair to expand my photographic range, so tonight, I experimented by making an el cheapo lightbox as documented at the strobist blog.

Screwup #1 was getting matte posterboard instead of the shiny stuff. D’oh. Luckily that mistake can be fixed for another $1.

Screwup #2 was more like an equipment failure. I think what I really need is to figure out a way to get my Speedlite off my camera and firing into the side of the box, but I don’t have a way to wirelessly trigger it. Instead, I aimed a 20W halogen light into the box, discovering that the location of the object in the box made a big difference due to the quadratic light falloff with distance. I think part of the problem was the weak lamp that I used; had I been able to blast my flash at the diffuser, a lot more light would have entered the box.

But I’m not sure where I want to go with this little experiment, so I think I’ll hold off on buying any new wireless toys for now.

The real motivation behind this setup was to take a decent picture of the Plantronics Voyager 510 headset, because I recently upgraded to a Jawbone and want to have the best pictures on Craigslist. I am perhaps the biggest nerd in the Front Range.

Anyone want to buy a headset? First $10 takes it.