Anyone who’s tried to photograph something to sell on eBay – or anyone who’s written a review for The Gadgeteer – knows how hard it is to get good pictures. It’s almost impossible to find bright, diffuse light sufficient to get clear, well-lighted pictures that can show the kind of detail needed for these endeavors. PBL offers a tabletop pop-up tent that serves as a small studio. The tent is a 30″ cube made of ultra-white nylon; it collapses down to 15″ disk for storage. Two adjustable (up to 6.5 ft) light holders with 8″ reflectors and 45 W compact fluorescent light bulbs (5100K daylight bulbs with 150W tungsten light equivalence) flood the studio tent with diffuse light. The kit comes with one white and one black backdrop and a shoot-through panel for the front of the tent. It’s about $105 at Amazon.com.
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Janet, do you own one of these? I’ve been looking at similar photo tents ever since I joined the Gadgeteer staff, but I haven’t picked one up because info on which are good and which aren’t seems pretty slim.
No, I don’t own one, Andy. Just like you, I’ve been looking and looking at these things, but I just don’t know which to pick. This one did look better to me than the others I’ve seen. The cube is bigger – at 30 X 30 X 30, the things I’ve reviewed with fit with no trouble. I also liked that the lights are taller, so you could shine them in more from the top than just low on the sides. I just wish it had some sort of storage case that came with it, like some of the smaller ones I’ve seen.