Make Product And Macro Shots In a Snap With Fotodiox Pro’s LED Studio-in-a-Box [Tech Tuesday]

November 15, 2016

By Laura Brauer

There was plenty to see at last month’s PhotoPlus Expo and as I was making my rounds of the show floor, I stopped at the Fotodiox Pro booth. The company offers lots of interesting products, but what caught my eye was the new LED Studio-in-a-Box—a cube that comes complete with its own LED lighting.

SAMSUNG CSC

All photos courtesy of Fotodiox Pro

Studio-in-a-Box is great for product photography and macro shoots, so if you do a lot of macro at weddings, you’ll be pleased at how portable the system is. The cube folds down small and sets up quickly and easily. The most difficult part (for me at least) was figuring out how to open the box it was shipped in. Better yet, this cube is not like reflectors or another tabletop tent I own where you have to collapse it onto itself. Instead, this cube folds and unfolds neatly and logically with simple velcro adhesives. The biggest issue is not getting the velcro stuck on your clothing, which I managed to avoid with no problems.

The cube is available in four sizes—16 x 16, 20 x 20, 24 x 24 and 28 x 28 inches—and I prefer the 24-inch model. It’s plenty big, but still easy to handle and to find a space for. However, Fotodiox has given you plenty of size options in case your needs are different than mine.

As mentioned earlier, the cube comes equipped with daylight-balanced LED lights arranged in a circle on the top panel. An incident exposure reading, according to Fotodiox, measures ISO 100, 1/60 at f/2. Overall, there’s plenty of light for product shots and close-ups, but there’s also a diffusion panel to modify brightness. Although bright, the light—especially when using the diffusion panel—is quite lovely and wraps around nicely. (Could there be a model with adjustable LEDs in the future? Let them know if that’s something you’re interested in.)

The Studio-in-a-Box comes with four (4) backdrops--this image does not show the grey.

The cube comes with a silver lining (literally) as well as four sturdy, flexible but non-wrinkling plastic backdrops in black, white, blue and grey (all colors except grey shown above). And while they won’t fit into the cube when you fold it up, you can easily hang on to the shipping box to carry everything with you. You might also want to pack an extension cord, too.

While it’s easy to shoot through the large front opening, there are also removable panels on the side and top to shoot through. It’s well-designed, user friendly and, better yet, nicely priced from $70-$120. You can learn more and get a good look at the product in this unboxing video: