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Recommendations for Lightbox with Built-in Lighting?

MMP

MMP

POTN Refugee
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I'm looking for a portable lightbox setup. I have external lighting, but I'd like to find something that includes it's own built-in LED lighting for the sake of portability and simplicity. Something between 20-30 inches. My main concern is that there is really no standard measurement to judge the brightness of the lights. One company may list 300 LEDs with 5,000 lumens and the next company lists something wild like 90 LEDs with 5,000,000 lumens.

I suppose I could do a bit of trial and error and take advantage of Amazon's generous return policy, but does anyone have experience with a particular brand or model?
 
Honestly I'm not familiar with the term lightbox, so I wouldn't be very helpful here. I hope you find what you're looking for.
 
MMP said:
I'm looking for a portable lightbox setup. I have external lighting, but I'd like to find something that includes it's own built-in LED lighting for the sake of portability and simplicity. Something between 20-30 inches. My main concern is that there is really no standard measurement to judge the brightness of the lights. One company may list 300 LEDs with 5,000 lumens and the next company lists something wild like 90 LEDs with 5,000,000 lumens.

I suppose I could do a bit of trial and error and take advantage of Amazon's generous return policy, but does anyone have experience with a particular brand or model?
Click to expand...
They make big LED ceiling panels that might help.


I thought about getting some for my basement studio to serve as fake windows (but haven't done that yet).

A couple of years ago I bought a "Light board for tracing, A4 size" which runs off USB-C. I wanted it as a replacement for a bulky light box that I got rid of. The new light box works great but I haven't used it much.
 
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Sadly with LED illumination equipment, obfuscation on the topic of photographic intensity is the watchword!
 
Wilt said:
Sadly with LED illumination equipment, obfuscation on the topic of photographic intensity is the watchword!
Click to expand...
Not really. It just works through a different mechanism. LED vs a xenon flash.
 
LEDs I see as ambient light. I prefer flash which controls ambient light. An advantage of LED is you can see the effect before the shot. A disadvantage is power. I use a lot, so flash suits me better than LED lighting. Sorry to be of little help with this.
 
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I made my own some years back thanks to a DIY Lightbox thread at the old POTN forum. It uses 5 white plasticized foam boards that attach together in a cube-shape with just stationary clips that clip onto painter's tape tabs at the board's corners. There are large window cutouts on the left and right sides for the lighting, which are external but adjacent to each side. To even out any hotspots, these "windows" have parchment paper over them. All together, sans the lighting, it weighs about one pound, and costs under $12. It all breaks down in seconds and fits into a large artist's folio ($ optional). The lights are the only expensive addition. One can add a rolled sheet of any paper color for the "infinite" background effect. You can use small magnets to hold down the rolled paper to the back and bottom boards.
 
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ImageMaker said:
LEDs I see as ambient light. I prefer flash which controls ambient light. An advantage of LED is you can see the effect before the shot. A disadvantage is power. I use a lot, so flash suits me better than LED lighting. Sorry to be of little help with this.
Click to expand...
What do you think of something like these?

LF308-Product-GODOX Photo Equipment Co.,Ltd.

Founded in 1993 as a high-tech manufacturing facility specializing in lighting and audio equipment, Godox has now become a lighting equipment expert and innovator of gears for photographers, videographers, filmmakers and more. Driven by the mission of offering great lighting and audio solutions...
www.godox.com
 
Capn Jack said:
What do you think of something like these?

LF308-Product-GODOX Photo Equipment Co.,Ltd.

Founded in 1993 as a high-tech manufacturing facility specializing in lighting and audio equipment, Godox has now become a lighting equipment expert and innovator of gears for photographers, videographers, filmmakers and more. Driven by the mission of offering great lighting and audio solutions...
www.godox.com
Click to expand...
Not sure of these. The strobe side does not appear very powerful. Possibly 200ws.

My lowest power strobes are 600ws. My main strobes are 1,000ws. I have a couple 1,100 battery powered packs. They are all Elinchrom units. Some 25 years old. All working perfectly.
 
ImageMaker said:
Not sure of these. The strobe side does not appear very powerful. Possibly 200ws.

My lowest power strobes are 600ws. My main strobes are 1,000ws. I have a couple 1,100 battery powered packs. They are all Elinchrom units. Some 25 years old. All working perfectly.
Click to expand...
Thanks!
I just grabbed the first examples off a search window. I saw a couple of examples of 1000ws, but those seem to be hybrid LED and strobe flash. A very quick search seems to have 600ws for a high number for LED only. I ask because the MARCOM department where I work uses LED panels for product lighting and for video.
 
LED lighting is a lot like the incandescent photoflood bulbs of old...when you provide sufficient light to take shots, you have to put so much bright constant light on the subject that they are squinting due to the brightness...with LED you simply are not also cooking your subject with heat!
Some of the more recent LED sources have constant output, along with a brighter 'flash' output like using electronic flash. But, as has been so true of LED sources, you have no idea just what the aperture value at a certain light-to-subject distance, because of intensity obfuscation.
 
Capn Jack said:
Speaking of obfuscation, what is that statement supposed to mean?!
Click to expand...
"Obfuscation:
  1. the action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
    "when confronted with sharp questions they resort to obfuscation"


    They don't state light output in terms a still photographer can translate to an exposure at a certain ISO and distance...they talk 'lux' and 'lumen' instead. Convert that to an exposure if you can.
 
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Wilt said:
"Obfuscation:
  1. the action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
    "when confronted with sharp questions they resort to obfuscation"
Click to expand...
I know what obfuscation means- you are a past master of the "art".

Wilt said:
They don't state light output in terms a still photographer can translate to an exposure at a certain ISO...they talk 'lux' and 'lumen' instead. Convert that to an exposure if you can.
Click to expand...
Read the rest of the thread- both LED and strobes list outputs in watts. People who actually know what they are doing can use LED strobes. At this time, the regular strobes are simply more powerful.

This one does TTL for flash setting so it works just like regular flash:

Here's a nice table from Wikipedia the shows EV and lux so it really isn't as difficult as you are making it.:
EV100LuminanceIlluminance
cd/m2fLlxfc
−40.0080.00230.1560.015
−30.0160.00460.3130.029
−20.0310.00910.6250.058
−10.0630.0181.250.116
00.1250.0362.50.232
10.250.07350.465
20.50.146100.929
310.292201.86
420.584403.72
541.17807.43
682.3316014.9
7164.6732029.7
8329.3464059.5
96418.71280119
1012837.42560238
1125674.75120476
1251214910,240951
13102429920,4801903
14204859840,9603805
154096119581,9207611
1681922391163,84015,221
en.wikipedia.org

Exposure value - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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