How I built a killer lightbox with LEDs

We saw Colin G Prickett’s light bo and was blown away. Lucky us! Colin sent us the complete build if you want to build one yourself, or get some inspiration

A visit to Homebase resulted in the purchase of a plastic box on wheels.

I cut a hole in the side and another on the lid, screwed in some wooden battens for fixing four interior “daylight” LED lights (2 on the side and 2 on the lid).

I then cut some white foamex panels and taped them together with some lengths of aluminium angle (also from Homebase) to form an inner box.

Each light can be switched on or off independently and they are all plugged into one 4-gang so I just need one power source to work with.

Originally I installed two small strip lights but they give a slightly yellow glow instead of the pure white I was trying to achieve. (I kept them in the box anyway for further flexibility).

A friend improved the interior with a roll of white paper as the backdrop, thereby eliminating any visible lines along the edges of the foamex panels.

This arrangement gives me continuous white light with almost no product shadow when using all four lights, or alternatively I can produce shadows by turning some of the lights off.

I could probably also play with coloured filters on the LED lights.

The plastic box is very lightweight for portability and can be placed either on the ground (for shooting from above) or on a higher surface for horizontal tripod work.

Since the box is on wheels I can also roll it into a precise position rather than fiddling too much with the camera \ tripod setup. I can also insert foamex dividers, vertically or sloping, and use curtain hooks on the top edge for suspending items like necklaces. The lid clamps on securely using the box flaps.