[binary visions]

Jenn wanted to take pictures of her scrapbooks to preserve them in case of an accident. Well, we can't peel back the plastic coverings from the pages because they're often stuck to the old photos inside, so direct flash causes all kinds of crazy reflections, no matter how it's bounced around the room.

I don't do any product photography, so I built my own ghetto softbox by lining a paper box with aluminum foil, and covering the front with sheets of paper. This worked, but I only have one flash and the bottom of the album page was very dark, so I stood up the box top, weighted with a tape dispenser, with aluminum foil for a reflector.

Works perfectly.

 

[Quo Fan]

Looks good.

 

[Nick]

I'm confused. You use this to shoot teh porns, how exactly?

 

[AngryMetalsmith]

Good improv BV !

You can get a piece of drafting mylar from any copy shop that does blueprints and architectural renderings. It's what I use to diffuse my tungsten lights.

But why not just use a scanner ?

 

[binary visions]

I'm confused. You use this to shoot teh porns, how exactly?

With a softbox this size, I'd have to stick with midget porn.

Anything I starred in would require a really large reflector if you get my drift.

Good improv BV !

You can get a piece of drafting mylar from any copy shop that does blueprints and architectural renderings. It's what I use to diffuse my tungsten lights.

But why not just use a scanner ?

Yep, I'm sure I'll build my own softbox at some point that's a little less ghetto - thanks for the tip on the mylar. The pages are too big to fit on a normal scanner, so I'd have to scan both sides of the page and stitch and didn't want this project to become a month long affair. I suspect there would be reflection problems as well, since the only thing I can make work is almost perpendicular side lighting - any amount of lighting coming in from the top (even very uniform bounced lighting) and I get crazy reflections off the wavy/warped plastic coverings on the pages.