New lighting technique

I hate the look of my old pictures. The lighting is so direct, so harsh. Horrible. They pale in comparison to these I just produced after some experimentation:

Lampropelma violaceopes, juvenile female





Poecilotheria rufilata, juvenile male





Many more to come, as I play around with my very crudely constructed softbox.

Here are the smaller versions, just in case the forum's compression system ruins the pictures for those of you with smaller monitors:



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They are looking great Gavin, nice work

Thanks Pete, I'll tell you how to make one (the softbox I was talking about) on MSN if you'd like

Draiman wrote:Thanks Pete, I'll tell you how to make one (the softbox I was talking about) on MSN if you'd like

Would you mind doing a little write up with any pics of the process you have so it can be stickied at the top of this section to help other people make them to get quality pics?

Young_Gun wrote:

Draiman wrote:Thanks Pete, I'll tell you how to make one (the softbox I was talking about) on MSN if you'd like

Would you mind doing a little write up with any pics of the process you have so it can be stickied at the top of this section to help other people make them to get quality pics?

Lmao, sure. It's nothing difficult though. Just get a decent sized box (any type), some aluminium foil, and double-sized tape. Cover the sides (except the one on the ground) with the foil, and cut out a small squarish piece to fit just under the camera's onboard "pop-up" flash (only SLRs and superzoom compacts have it like this, so this won't work for everyone). I use tape to make sure it doesn't fall off. When you take a picture, that small piece of foil reflects the camera flash onto the foil on the top and sides of the box, which then bounce the light back onto the subject. This is a very amateurish attempt at making a softbox though. You can buy a proper one for 20-30 quid, probably. I'm just too poor for that.

I will take some pictures tomorrow to illustrate what I've just said. Right now it's midnight over here and I'd like to get some shut-eye

Draiman wrote:

Young_Gun wrote:

Draiman wrote:Thanks Pete, I'll tell you how to make one (the softbox I was talking about) on MSN if you'd like

Would you mind doing a little write up with any pics of the process you have so it can be stickied at the top of this section to help other people make them to get quality pics?

Lmao, sure. It's nothing difficult though. Just get a decent sized box (any type), some aluminium foil, and double-sized tape. Cover the sides (except the one on the ground) with the foil, and cut out a small squarish piece to fit just under the camera's onboard "pop-up" flash (only SLRs and superzoom compacts have it like this, so this won't work for everyone). I use tape to make sure it doesn't fall off. When you take a picture, that small piece of foil reflects the camera flash onto the foil on the top and sides of the box, which then bounce the light back onto the subject. This is a very amateurish attempt at making a softbox though. You can buy a proper one for 20-30 quid, probably. I'm just too poor for that.

I will take some pictures tomorrow to illustrate what I've just said. Right now it's midnight over here and I'd like to get some shut-eye

Appreciate it mate, a step by step thing with pics would help people make their own if they can't afford or don't want to buy one, they are going quite cheap on eBay atm also.

Great spiders and awsome pics mate

Nice T's and great work with the camera shot's .

I'll post pictures of the set-up tomorrow; sorry about the delay!

Meanwhile:





I am very pleased with how these turned out.

Smaller versions: