light box for reptile photos?

Dave_W

The Dude
Photo Lights Studio Light Box Tent Softbox Diffuser Cube Portable Kit | eBay

^^^ would that be ideal?
or is it junk?

is there better if that one is junk?
im looking to photograpg small geckos at truest color and quality.

From reading your posts, I see you're very interested in obtaining photographs that give the exact color on a gecko as what you see with your eyes. If so, using a lightbox will not achieve your goal, instead the image will look much like the image did before you used a lightbox. However, you can achieve can achieve your goal using any photo editing software. You can alter a color, change a color, increase that single color's saturation or vibrance until you reach the point at which its image is equivalent to what you see with your eyes.
 

MagicalGeckos

New member
Thanks dave.
It gets tricky with editing in the reptile community... some will think you are misrepresenting the animal..
my goal is to get as close to actual color with 0 post processing
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
so what will the light box actually do?
A light box helps you control things like background and lighting (shadows, etc.).

There's nothing wrong with post-processing your photos to achieve ACCURATE color balance. If that's your main concern, put a grey scale/color check card in your shot and balance your color off that.

The key word here being "balance".

Cheap Solution: 3x5" Color Card
 
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Are they normally in a cage? Do you shoot them from the top? If so then you could leave them in the cage and use a bounce flash to get even light and then post process to get accurate color. You could also put white cards along the cage sides to bounce the bounced flash to get even more soft, even light.
 

Dave_W

The Dude
The issue of color rendition has much more to do with your sensor and the settings on your camera than it does with the amount or type of light that you're using. Color management is a branch of photography that is as big, if not bigger than photography itself. It's not something that you can overcome with simple steps like lightboxes. The easiest way to achieve the colors you feel are most accurate is to make put those colors on yourself. Otherwise you will be at the mercy of your sensor and your software.
 

miknoypinoy

Senior Member
bounce flash is the way to go. . . i always bounce off the ceiling to defuse the harshness of the flash . . . I take pictures of my boa constrictors. . . (anerys, hypos, albinos, jungles, sunsets, motleys ) and I also like to accurately depict the colors. . . I do have to post process a bit. very minimal adjustments to lights, darks, sharpening. you don't want to under depict your animals either. . .

I don't have a lot of examples on this forum, but my profile has a link to my photo bucket. . . you can sift through and check out some of my shots for examples. . .

I use a sb700 flash. . .



I'm not afraid . . . YOU WILL BE. . . YOU WILL BE. . .
 
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