Photographing Flowers Using a Light Tent

Using a light tent or light box to photograph flowers can produce surprisingly good results. Light tents are easy to set up and can be placed almost anywhere. I prefer to set up the light tent in a dark area such as a basement where I have better control over the lighting. Light tents are also a terrific way to continue your photography if it is too cold, hot, or rainy outside.

This photograph was taken using an inexpensive Cowboy Studio Light Tent with a black velvet background. I find that the lights that came with the Cowboy Studio were too bright. I used a household gooseneck desk lamp and a 22 inch reflector to provide the lighting for the photograph. Experiment with the positions and distance of the light and the reflector to get the look you are trying to achieve. For this shot, I only used the light from the reflector to light the flower.

You will also need a tripod and a remote shutter release as you will be taking long exposures of the flowers. The camera settings that I used for this photo are shown below the photographs.

The photos are color and black & white versions of the same image. The photograph was converted to black & white using Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2.

Build an Easy and Inexpensive DIY Light Box for Macro and Flower Photography

Focal Length: 100 mm
Aperture: f/32
Shutter Speed: 15 seconds
ISO: 200

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