How To Build A 30$ Still Life Photography Folding Table

A few years ago I started shooting for microstock sites. My main focus was vivid still life with white background photographs. This is why I started looking around for a nice and cheap still life table.

After a quick search on the internet, I exluded the commercial solution and turned my energy towards analyzing a variety of homemade solutions. I am living in a small apartment, so one of the key features of my table would have to be the ability to fold it and remove it from my wive’s eyes in a very short time. I decided to build my own home made-low cost-still life-folding table! This post will illustrate my idea which tok about 1 hour of work to build and cost less than 30$

Required Materials:

1 100cm x 50cmx2mm white/translucent Plexiglas sheet (table base)
1 100cm x 5mm Aluminum “U” profile
2 folding shelves supports
4 “long” 80cm x 20cm x 10mm wooded bars
3 “short” 60cm x 20cm x 10mm wooden bars
few self-threading screw for wood and related washers (for wider area grip)
vinavil glue (or other vinilic wood glue)
screw driver
hacksaw
drill (to create guide holes to avoid wood to break)
pencil and ruler
2 wooden sawhorses (optional)
50cm White paper roll or 50×100 paper sheet (optional)
1 100cm x 50cm x 2mm corrugated white plastic sheet (table cover to protect from dust when unused and kept unfolded)

The Building Process

The build is reasonably easy: take one of the long wooden bars (80cm) and one of the folding shelves supports.

Open the support to 90 degrees and screw it to the wooden bar at about 60cm (depending on the proportions you want between the the base of the table and the background)

Don’t cut the “spare” part of the wood bar that remains behind the support, you’ll need it for structural stability and for adding further lights.

Take a second wooden bar (80 cm) and screw it on the other side of the shelf support. Make sure that the support can still fold before finalizing this step.

Now we need to build the holders for the Plexiglas sheet.

Take the three short wooden bars (60cm) and cut them to about 53 cm each. (The exact measure depends on the kind of support you have lying around, this was good for my sawhorse).

Take the 100 mm “U” profile and cut it into two 50 mm beams. Next you’ll screw the U beams to the bars.

When screwing the aluminum beams to the bars, make sure there is a little bit of space on either side of the beam. This way the support strain will be on the wood and not on the plexiglass. Also make sure that the beam is screwed in the horizontal middle of the bar. It should be straight as it will be the guide for the plexi.

Use a drill to make 4 holes in the profile. Then, re-drill while the wood and aluminum are clamped together. This will make sure that the holes are aligned. You should now have something like this.

These two pieces will be the top and bottom of the table (while the third bar will be the connecting barrel at the middle.

To connect the horizontal bars to the table, drill a guiding hole at the end of each bar. (Guide holes prevent the wood from breaking when it is screwed).

Now screw the horizontal bars to the shelved structure. Place the two bars with aluminum profiles at the top and bottom and use the third one to connect at the other bottom side of the base.

If you drilled a guide, and used the washers to expand the screw grip and applied some glue between the wood bars, you should get a very solid structure.

To complete the structure take the Plexiglas sheet, put it into the first profile and place the second profile on the top (don’t screw it yet).

Push the top profile down letting it to slide on the vertical bars and flex the Plexiglas until it will create the desired angle, (don’t hesitate to push down because you need a long horizontal surface to put your subject on). Then mark the exact position for the second profile and track it with a pencil. Make sure to keep a 90 degrees angles between the shelved bars. Screw the last bar (removing the Plexiglas during this operation for easy fitting).

During assembling remember that the Plexiglas sheet needs to be held by the profiles on the short side and lie against the wooded bars on the long side (for about half the curve). The support will keep it stable on the curving zone.

Now you have the structure completed. Put the Plexiglas sheet between the front and upper beams and you are ready to shoot!

When you finish, you can remove the Plexiglas and fold the table, and store away from partner’s eyes.

Variants And Upgrades

The structure can be used on a table, or placed on two wooden sawhorses. If you go for sawhorses, you get a very portable configuration, plus the ability to place light beneath the table. The exceeding vertical bars can be used for lights or reflectors (which can be easily fixed with clamps)

I used white translucent Plexiglas, but in this project the Plexiglas sheets are interchangeable and you can try different colors or surface texture.

Many people uses paper for background, you can easily place a 50X100mm paper sheet on the table and fix it in a similar way. Once yo uare done, if you have enough space to keep the structure unfolded, you can keep paper and surface clean by covering it with a corrugated plastic sheet or any other cover, again, using the same beans. (The beam size is 0,5 cm, that can hold the 2mm for the plaxiglas plus other 2/3 mm for other uses)

If you are so lucky to find a 50cm wide paper roll, you can also fix it on the upper beam and keep the paper attached to the Plexiglas using few little clamps.