I had an occasion where I needed to light an object from underneath (the glass of beer in the pic above). I wrestled with it for some time, and then came up with what turned out to be a pretty easy solution.

Using a flat fluorescent light fixture I picked up at Home Depot, and a piece of black craft foam, and my large DIY light tent with glass riser, I was able to get the photo above. I cut a hole in the black craft foam that was roughly the same size as the base of the glass. I then put my black backdrop into the light tent, set the fluorescent light on my workbench inside the light tent, and then placed the craft foam on top of that so no light escaped except through the hole I had created. From there I inserted my glass sheet to have a riser (which was conveniently about an inch higher than the surface of the fluorescent light), filled the drinking glass with beer, and turned on the light. This photo did not require any additional lighting other than the fluorescent underneath the product. And by using the pane of glass as a riser, a nice reflection appeared as well.

That’s all there is to it, hope it works for you if you need some illumination from underneath on an object.

For my PVC Light Tent, I was originally using posterboard for a backdrop and some old white sheets for the “curtains”. Last week I went to a local fabric shop (Denver Fabrics, not the same as the Denver Fabrics online - long story) looking for some white ripstop nylon or sport nylon, along with black and white muslin. All they had was the white muslin. So I looked around the store a bit, and found some black poly poplin suitable for a backdrop. And then I found some cotton with a polyurethane laminate that is intended for people making their own baby diapers. It seemed suitable to me, so I got enough of it to make side and top curtains for the tent. I also got some velcro to use as attachment points.

Once home, I placed velcro squares along the top left and right PVC pipes to hold the side curtains up. I allowed for a little bit of crossover to the lateral pipes, in order to make sure the vertical PVC was not visible in any reflections. I had already had the cotton laminate cut to the rough dimensions I needed, so I hung one corner up, attached velcro in the remaining appropriate places, and trimmed the excess off the bottom. Did the same on the other side, then the top and was all done with the curtains. Had enough excess that I should be able to use the material in a larger softbox I am planning to build.

After this I mounted additional velcro to hold the backdrops up, and applied velcro to the backdrop material (the black poplin and white muslin). After a few test shots, I decided to add the front curtain, and cut a large + in the front curtain to put my lens through. All in all, things have worked pretty well in there. Here is a sample photo.

I still need to work out lighting and white balance, but with a little bit of time, those should work out pretty easily. More difficult is going to be perfecting the underlighting of objects to really give them some pop. I will be experimenting with that this week.

Oh, some people have been asking about these beer bottle glasses I am taking photos of. They will be on sale soon, and I’ll be sure to post a link when they are. Cheers.