Macro Photography on a Budget

Work let out early today in anticipation of the upcoming holiday weekend, so I found myself at home doing nothing but reading Strobist. I came across an article about making your own macro photo studio for less than $10 and was inspired. But I didn't have a box laying around and was too lazy to drive over to the local art supply shop. Deciding I'd rather eat than play with cardboard, I walked over to the kitchen to find some food when I noticed that the sunlight coming through my window, which is covered with a thin white paper curtain, cast beautifully diffused light onto my dinner table. I saw a couple of ripe avocado and thought what the heck, let's snap some shots. At this point I have to confess that I do not own an SLR. Well, I do own an old Ricoh 35mm, but nowadays I only take pictures with my trusty Canon SD500. I'm looking to buy an SLR soon. Plus I figure if I can learn to take good pictures with a P&S, I should be able to take fantastic pictures with an SLR. At least that's the hope. I liked the warmness of the light cast by the diffused sunlight and wanted to see how the onboard flash compared. Verdict? Onboard flash ruined the shot. Update: My buddy Mark pointed out that the picture below is not a fair comparison since the composition and background are completely different. Update: Below is the nearly the same composition, but with the onboard flash set to automatic. Simply horrible. I then took some pictures of my iPhone. I love all the reflective surfaces on it. Unfortunately the screen is a murky shade of black. Not very interesting. I wanted to reflect some of the light coming in from my skylight onto the top of the phone, but I lacked a stand and reflector. I tried aluminum foil, but it didn't work very well. I also would have needed to grow another set of arms to hold it! Lastly I snapped some shots of my pocket knife. Rigging it was fun: it's scotch taped to my banana holder.

In all these pictures I would have liked to experiment with adding a second light source, perhaps aimed slightly behind and on the camera left side of the objects. I was also going for a seamless bottom-to-background look, but I lacked a large enough piece of posterboard/paper. I used a hole-punched piece of paper instead. That's the reason why some of my pictures (e.g. the knife) are so tightly cropped. So that's that. My first foray into macro photography with diffused light is complete. Not a bad way to spend a lazy afternoon. Question: If I want to mix incandescent light sources with diffused sunlight, will my white balance get thrown off? Lessons learned: 1. Build the macro photo studio box. 2. Until the box is built, buy some butcher paper or something bigger than an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper! 3. Buy or make some stands (or grow two more arms). 4. Buy a decent SLR with a couple of flashes (someday). 5. Shoot more colorful items!