PVC Lightbox improves quality of product photos

    Between Etsy, eBay and other online commerce sites, there are a lot of people hawking wares on the internet.

    And to promote these products, the sellers put up pictures, and the quality varies from professional-looking product photos to something someone took with a cheap phone camera on a kitchen table with no thought for lighting.

    Poor photos don't necessarily lead to sales, or getting the best price in an online auction. People can't see how good the product looks.

    But there is a way to get good looking product photos. Use a light box. It's a device that surrounds the product in soft light from multiple sides, eliminating reflections and shadows, as well as distracting backgrounds.

    There are some DIY versions made from cardboard boxes, but the best, in my opinion, is the one made from PVC pipe. PVC Fittings Online has a Youtube video showing how they put together one for product photography.

    I built one, using two 10-foot lengths of ½-inch PVC pipes, with four three-way connectors and four elbows. I use the elbows to put the extra two-foot sections across the bottom as feet. It cost me less than $11 in PVC parts at Lowe's.

    While the video calls for making the walls out of curtain, I found that blank newsprint works as well. You can usually get a roll of the material from your local newspaper for a dollar or two.

Frugal Filmmaker's $5 PVC light stands a practical way to hang lights, back drops.

    As most makers know, PVC pipes are a versatile medium.

    You can make quite a few things out of the pipes for a relatively low cost. The limits are just your imagination, just like with Lego bricks or Tinker Toys.

    (The pipes have been nicknamed "Tinker Tubes" for their use as a modular building material.)

    One of the more popular uses of PVC among DIY photographers is light stands. If you go online, you'll find a variety of stands online, holding a variety of lighting rigs, from speed lights to modified work lights.

    In my opinion, one of the best is the one designed by Scott Eggleston, also known as The Frugal Filmmaker for about $5 a stand. The stands are modular, which makes them adjustable to any height you need while being easy to transport. And you can use them to hang back drops, hold mics or position reflectors or sound-absorbing material.

    I built a set of four stands for about $25, which included extra poles to use for hanging a back drop, and extra connectors. I did try to cut some corners on Scott's design by eliminating end caps on the feet, but I quickly discovered that the caps are not there for aesthetics. They help stabilize the stand, because without them the stand is resting on the center pipe connector, making it unstable.

    My wife and I gave them a battle test recently, when we used them to hold up a limbo bar during a Cub Scout Blue and Gold banquet. The stands survived a parade of Scouts trying to get under the bar.