I received several question asking on how to do the white background. So I decided to make tutorial on how to do it, I hope it’s easy enough to follow 
Before reading this, you need to read Happy Soda’s Tutorial on figurine lighting, now after you read that, you can continue reading this.
Now before I explain, it’s easier if you look the setup first:
Front:
Right side:
Left side:
Components:
1. Light Box
2. Top Lamp
3. Right Lamp
4. Left Lamp 1
5. Left Lamp 2
6. Foil
7. Diffuser
8. Front Lamp
Light Box
This one is easy to make. First you need to find a medium sized box, remove all the front side and make holes on right, left, and top side of the box. After you finish, cover the sides with white cloth (I use my old white T-Shirt).
Lighting
Lighting is the most important factor for creating white background.
You need to have at least 4 lamps, this is not negotiable, you need 1 lamp for top side, 1 lamp for right side, 1 lamp for left side and another 1 lamp for the figurine.
For the lamp, you have to use cool daylight (6500K) light bulb. Avoid warm white (2700K) or cool white light bulbs (4100K). warm white will give you orange color, and cool white is not bright enough.
Another important thing is the light bulb wattage, for side lamps (top, left, right) you need to get 100 watt+ bulbs (or around 20watt+ if you use the spiral/energy saver bulb). You may need to use more than 3 lamps on sides if you don’t have strong bulb. I use 2 on left side, because I use 20 watt (~100 watt) bulbs on left side, I use 23 watt (~115 watt) bulbs on right and top side.
For the front lamp, I recommend you to use 60-75 watt bulbs. (or 12-15 watt for spiral bulbs)
Object Position
This is important, wrong positioning will make your figurine to bright. You need to place the object outside of the light box. The key of making bright white background is to make the object darker than the background. (Thanks to Happy Soda for this advice :D).
Camera Settings
Last one is the camera setting, you need to set your camera to manual mode, and set the aperture by yourself. Try lowering the aperture until you get the desired result. You may need to re-adjust the white balance, but most of the time Auto white balance is good enough 
That’s it. I hope this tutorial can help you
For black background you can visit mukyaa tutorial.
Camera Info
Nikon D40, AF-S Nkkor 18-55mm Lens
Tags: 1/7, Alter, Evangelion, Fate/Stay Night, Saber, Soryu Asuka Langley, Toysworks, Tutorial, Type Moon
WhyWai on 
FlamingY on 
26 comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link
http://www.otadesho.com/tutorial-how-to-make-low-cost-true-white-background/trackback/
January 18, 2008 at 10:15 am
Pingback from
mukyaa~ Experiment with Peace@Pieces
December 29, 2007 at 9:23 pm
so many lamp >_<
Vixion’s last blog post: Yay !!! Just Arrive
December 30, 2007 at 2:32 am
Great tutorial!!! Truly your setup is really cheaper than buying a professional ultraexpensive lightbox!
Zelloss’s last blog post: Mapa Locales Akihabara
December 30, 2007 at 4:12 am
Whoa, awesome. It’s a shame I can’t really do this because I lack: (a) lamps and bulbs, and (b) a DSLR for proper photography (my point and shoot doesn’t have Aperture priority >_<).
Zeroblade’s last blog post: And the spending never stops?
December 30, 2007 at 10:11 am
Awesome tutorial, very informative and interesting. Thanks for sharing the tips and setup, definitely worth trying out and most appreciated! ^^b
December 30, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Thanks for the guides.
Now what i need are lamps, and perhaps something better than my Optio SV ;__;
e-jump’s last blog post: My Waifu~ Kazami Mizuho :3
December 30, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Woho that’s a lot of lights ^^;
The only lamps I have give warm orange light, so with the WB of my camera I can manage colors with colored backgrounds, but that’s also why I cannot handle white background yet.
Need to find better lamps first, but I’ll try this, one day…
Thanks a lot ron~ ! Your Asuka picture is still amazing me ^^
lu-k’s last blog post: Yotsuba&!
December 31, 2007 at 1:38 am
So many lamps. My recent indoors shoots only consist of two lamps. A hair lamp, and a side lamp. I think as you gain more experience, you’ll end up using less lights and start knowing how to work your camera to work with the environment.
Still, I prefer to take my photos outside
Good tutorial as well.
Adun’s last blog post: Winter 2008 Season Preview
December 31, 2007 at 8:50 am
@adun: yah, for pure white background you need to have that many lamps, unless you want to edit the photo with image editor (photoshop) to remove the grayish (or bluish) shadow. It’s very hard to create pure white background with only 2 lamps, you may get over exposed figurine if you set the background to all white using the camera exposure/aperture.
I normally use only 1-2 lamps for non white background ^^
December 31, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Great tutorial! But yeah, the amount of lamps there are crazy. I use a hair lamp and a side lamp myself, together with diffusers and a paper reflector ^^;
Windbell’s last blog post: Kureha, Gazing under the moon
December 31, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Lol, when I start doing indoor shoots I’ll definitely need this, especially when the weather isn’t good. But for now I’ll rely on the sun to help me out ^^.
AS’s last blog post: HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008
December 31, 2007 at 2:04 pm
thanks for the tutorial.but i do not have a DSLR, is there anyway to compensate with a point and shoot?
Setsuna-san’s last blog post: To Hell and Back
December 31, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Some point and shoot camera have manual aperture setting, so it should be possible with compact camera.
If you don’t have manual aperture setting, you can try increasing the exposure instead.
December 31, 2007 at 4:44 pm
This is great, thanks for the tut.
Your picture looks amazing, totally reminds me of real models.
December 31, 2007 at 8:42 pm
@ron~ i see. thanks for the info.
Setsuna-san’s last blog post: Happy New Year 2008!!
December 31, 2007 at 10:16 pm
I simply lurvvvee that DIY-ed light box! I was thinking of getting one from retail until I saw the price （;´Д｀） I think I’ll make one myself now!
Thanks for the wonderful and easy-to-follow tutorial! I should try this after my big shift to a new place.
dice’s last blog post: Japanese mission: to ani-mize & manga-ize the world
January 1, 2008 at 6:13 am
Excellent. You’ve also worked out the foreground lighting for the figure too. Some of your earlier attempts blew out the figure, but that Saber and Asuka just look fantastic.
super rats’s last blog post: She’s Miss Nobody from Alter
January 1, 2008 at 7:41 am
nice, the Saber and Asuka pics looks great, great tutorial on how to make truly white background.
valho’s last blog post: Happy New Year !!!
January 3, 2008 at 10:24 am
Very nice tutorial here! Proper lighting and proper photography goes a long way when showing things via the internet. You do not need a DSLR to take photos like these; I use a point and shoot for my pictures. Most digital cameras have a custom function where settings such as iso, aperture, shutter speeds, etc can be set. I wrote up a small tutorial myself a while back for taking pictures of models that may come in handy for some folks here: http://www.gamerabaenre.com/photography.htm
GameraBaenre’s last blog post: Merry Christmas!
January 8, 2008 at 3:55 am
Sweet tutorial! Looks like you’ve got that white background down to a science! It almost looks like the background itself is lit up! Totally awesome! I take it that most of those lights are meant for the actual background rather than for the figure!
Have you tried other colored backgrounds? Might be interesting…
January 8, 2008 at 9:37 am
Yah most of the light are for the background, to make it really bright white ^^, I haven’t test with other bright color using this setting, but I will soon
January 8, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I tried a HQ indoor photo shoot with white background, and used just 2 lamps. And i got grayish background.
Well, i guess i’ll need more lamps to make the background brighter.
BTW, can i take a look at the EXIF data for those 2 Saber photos? Just for learning purpose, thanks in advance.
sonic_ver2’s last blog post: 1/7 Mitsuru Kirijo (Persona 3) by Kotobukiya
January 8, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Yah, normally I only use 2 lamps for all non pure white bg photos. other than white, 2 lamps are more than enough. this month I’m going to try using bright colored bg with this setting.
Camera Exif for that photo:
Exposure Time = 0.7692″
F Number = F29
Exposure Program = Manual
ISO Speed Ratings = 200
Exif Version = Version 2.2
Date Time Original = 2007-12-28 19:31:52
Date Time Digitized = 2007-12-28 19:31:51
Exposure Bias Value = ±0EV
Max Aperture Value = F4.59
Metering Mode = CenterWeightedAverage
Light Source = unknown
Flash = Off
Focal Length = 35mm
Color Space = Uncalibrated
Sensing Method = One-chip color area sensor
January 15, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Nice tutorial Ron. These are the kinds of things I need to learn to improve my own photography skills (I started taking pics this past weekend so I’ve alot to learn - Super Rats was a big help)
Any suggestions you would have for me would be greatly appreciated.
Bob-san’s last blog post: Takamachi Nanoha by Alter
January 15, 2008 at 2:33 pm
only suggestion is, never stop trying (and of course never stop buying figurines too :p)
August 28, 2008 at 1:25 pm
great tutorial! I’m using almost the same camera as you (I’m using Nikon D60) but I couldn’t get that true white background. Turns out I wasn’t using enough lamps.
I’ll try this setup soon. ^^
Jaydeads last blog post.. Gundam Model Kit Contest 2008