Kibo …

Foamcore Macro Studio

Jul 12th, 2007 by Intermanaut

A few months ago man schutt, a Flickrite, posted a design for a home-made, foldable and portable macro box. After managing to source some foam-core from Graphics Direct I gave it a try.

man schutt’s original design was beyond my capability - I couldn’t figure out how to hinge the sides and the back, so I simplified it by using Velcro sticky pads to join the panels together. The bottom panel is attached to the sides, and has been cut to fit inside the back and sides. The top just hinges off the top of the back of the box.

The foam-core boards start out as A3 sized (420×297mm) so I’ve made the box 297×297x297mm, scoring through one side of the plastic coating and through the foam, creating bendable edges. This can be used to reflect more light in and upwards if you prop it up.

I’ve also added some black fabric to the set-up. It’s a 1.5×1m piece of cloth that I bought at a sewing/wool shop, and it’s large enough to just drape across the box and push in to the corners. The fabric seems to suck the light out of the scene, so it’s ideal when you don’t want any background to be visible when shooting objects that are too light to shoot against the white background.

My results so far can be seen in this Flickr Tag Search.

One Response to “Foamcore Macro Studio”

on 14 Jul 2007 at 10:55 am1Intermanaut

Someone asked how I keep the insects and spiders still for these photos…

The crickets aren’t particularly mobile. Even though they can jump they tend to walk unless they’re spooked.

If a critter tries to do a runner, I gently blow on it. I think this causes some sort of instinctive reaction and makes them grip whatever they’re standing on, so they stay still for a second.

The spiders are a bit trickier because they’re evil and just want to eat me. When I was shooting “Arachnoid Yoga” the spider was determined to either escape or turn her back on me. When she was trying to escape I blew quite hard to turn her around. If she had her back to me I used part of a shrub to gently point her in the right direction. After a minute or two she’d get bored and would stay still.

I think it’s quite easy to capture this sort of photo in the macro box because there’s only one way out, and that’s past the camera.

I do recommend giving the macro box a go if you’re interested in this sort of photography. It makes shooting them so much easier, and you don’t need to re-point the tripod very much to keep the critter in frame.

… keeping meat fresh since 1970

Foamcore Macro Studio

One Response to “Foamcore Macro Studio”

Recent Posts

Things

Stuff

Blogroll