Internet Dumper

Boxes are all around us. We get them in mail. we bring them from the store. Heck, we even got one when we bought our digital camera.
Have we ever stopped a minute to think what those boxes can do for us in other aspects then storing?
Below are 4 box photography hacks and mods for your pleasure. Click the title of each to go to the full tutorial on how to do it!

1. The Simple (Boxy) Light Tent

This hack is maybe the most known hack of them all. With a medium sized box and some diffusion material (silk, sketching paper, baking paper…) you get a pro studio for photographing small objects.
Making one can not be easier - cut three sides of a box and glue some sketching paper - about 5 minutes of work.
The idea is simple. The light that enters the box is diffused by the sketching paper. This diffusion eliminates hard shadows and create beautiful specular highlights.

2. Strobist Food Box Thing

Being the Strobist, David Hobby could not let the Light Tent mode stay where it was and made some improvement on it.
In the Strobist version the box is cut in half, creating kind of a crate.
This crate is diffused in a similar manner to the Light Tent, but it allows for the addition of extra 1cent reflectors / paper sheets.

3. The Digital Pinhole Box Camera

This is one of the greatest hacks I know. Combination of old and new.
This mod mimics the original pinhole camera - an image projected through a hole and captured on a screen. Unlike hacks that makes a hole in the lens capand project the image on a sensor, this hack keeps the box spirit of the original pinhole camera.
Pinhole cost: 50 cents. Pinhole with Canon 5D - 2699.50 USD).

4. The Boxed Translucent Floor Hack

This last hack uses a box with triple duty: it acts a case for the flash, it doubles as a bench for holding a glass and triples as a flag for preventing flare.Again, a simple idea, beautifully executed.
With photographs that have uses under-light it is always hard to position the flash. In this mod, the flash sits in a box with the top open. On the open top you place the glass. Inside the box, you place the flash.
The added bonus here is that the box also acts a flag and prevents the light fro hitting the camera and create flare.