Creating a light table

I must have sounded pathetic in one of my recent blog posts. Thanks for the calls. How pathetic can I be with such good friends.*

I really like my light table and feel I didn't do it justice on the last posting. I'm such a bigger is better person. I photograph big papayas and the rinky-dink and expensive 'light tables' - which are no more a table than a college dictionary-sized book - won't work. I seen several pro photographers attempt to perch our huge Caribbean Reds on an 8.5x11 'light table'; this time I am right - bigger is better.

What siren call did I answer to embark on the creation of a light table?** This is the year that I must redo our avocado brochure. It's the brochure as a company we don't want to print, raising eyebrows as we admit there are over 70 different varieties that can be sold as a SlimCado vs. here are your SlimCados, yeah they come in different shapes, sizes and tastes. Who wants to be the salesperson that is forced to sell by variety.***

The brochure itself is rather monotonous, show a photo of each variety, name it, show when in season and give a brief description. However unexciting it may be graphically, it is a popular piece of collateral. And we are running out of the ONE color brochure. Yes one color, it's that old it is. Are there any one color printing presses still out there?****

What's so difficult?** Do a photo shoot, take photos of all the avocados. Not so fast. The avocados are available at different times during the season. For a full color brochure I will need to get the lighting, the angle of photography, the distance from camera to avocado, the exposure, and the focus all the same for each avocado. Either that or do a lot of work in PhotoShop (the positive to that is that I will learn the 3D feature in the application). OMG, I just had an epiphany - what a fantastic idea to do the brochure in one color!

Given all the above, given my ace photographers are not located in Miami (I miss Heather and Dan I've never met face-to-face) and given that I have quashed the thought of overnighting each avocado to them as they become available, I must find a way to do this series of shoots on my own.
I've cordoned off a space in a spare bedroom to do this. The space and equipment will stay put throughout the season. All that's needed are the avocados, which I will carefully place on their marks, turn on the lights, fidget with the camera settings and shoot.

Sounds easy yet I doubted my ability to do it, hence why I set it up so far in advance (avocado season starts in May).

1. Where do I start?***** Lately it's where I always start...the IKEA catalog! I must post panoramic shots of my new IKEA kitchen; but I digess. I'm going to take overhead shots of the avocados. I want no shadows to have to delete in PS. Hence the need for a low light table, like an end table. I found an end table with a glass top and shelf underneath. I would give you the IKEA item number, but they change merchandise so much it's useless.

2. Need the light. Most light tables use florescent because the long bulbs distribute the light from end-to-end on the light table. It's true you want diffused light, but I want to go incandescent so I took apart an existing floor lamp (Wal-Mart $10) and got light bulb, electrical encasement and switch, and cord. I'm kidding myself if I think I went cheap. The floor lamp I replace this one with will be much more expensive. I'm sure a trip to Lowe Home will get you the same for even less. I put the business end of the lamp straight up on the lower shelf (my table has a 'wooden' 2nd shelf so I had to drill a big hole).

3. Surrounded the light with reflective surfaces. Aluminum foil on the shelf and foil poster boards the size of the distance between bottom shelf and glass shelf. Taped the sized poster boards together on the ends to form a 2D box the width and depth of the end table.

4. Bought opaque plexi-glass in 1/8th width sheets cut to the size of the end table's glass top. This way instead of buying 1/2" and having too little light come through, I can build up the plexi-glass to get the amount of light desired.

5. Clamped on two cheap desk lamps, yes IKEA. The cheaper the better, since cheap desk lamps only allow you low wattage bulbs.

6. Bought clip on diffusers for the desk lamps, but found that I also need my 'camera shoot' tent. Turns out there's a lot of light to diffuse, avocados are very shiny.

7. Bought a tripod that can hang the camera out and over the light table. This was probably the most expensive item but it's so reusable.

8. Tried it out and found the need for a photographic stand sandbag to keep the camera from slicing out of thin air and making guacamole.

I'm ready for the SlimCado season.


* My punctuation day-by-day calendar spent two weeks on the use of question marks on rhetorical questions. I can't remember its use. The footnoted sentence shows either my obstinence in learning or that I have absorbed it and can't remember doing so. No phone calls please, I know this is pathetic in and of itself.
**This is not rhetorical.
*** Obviously rhetorical.
****So rhetorical yet the '?' makes it so compelling.
*****clueless