Anyone have info about light boxes & lights for ebay pic

[chaoticjelly]

As per subject.. does anyone have any experiences and/or info on light boxes and lights for taking ebay pictures?

Ive been looking at these lately, and a kit with two large lamps, with 5000K bulbs that dont get hot, and produce pure daylight, and a fairly large "light box" which basically you put the item inside, and its all white inside.. shine the lamps on each side and you get the item totally illuminated with no shadows etc..

I was wondering if anyone has one of these.. are they worth it ? I was looking and they cost about £150+

Would it be worth it in the long run? Would I actually get any benefit from taking pictures using it (obviously the pictures would be better) but would stuff really sell much better?

At the moment I take pictures of ebay items on a white sheet laid down on our conservatory floor, in the middle of the afternoon.

[FABombjoy]

I have a 30"x30" tent that I bought from eBay - I think it was around $20-30.

From there, I cut a piece of "plasticore" (corrugated plastic) to fit the in the bottom & covered it in white fabric (I think some kind of clearance wedding dress material). I did this because I didn't want to have to worry about wrinkles in the light tent fabric / sheet material.

For lights, I just use a couple of 500w halogen floods that I keep for working on cars / house tasks. Halogen isn't the best type for lighting, but if you white balance it really doesn't matter all that much. Some people use fluorescent bulbs but I have yet to find any 'off the shelf' with phosphors persistent enough to prevent flickering in my digital camera's preview.

And if you get really good looking pics, be sure to add a disclaimer like "picture is of actual product" because they can end up looking like stock photos.

I also have a 12"x12" tent that you can use with a few desk lamps - but only if your subject is small.

[chaoticjelly]

Thanks for the info!