Review: Lastolite Ephotomaker

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Product Details Details at a glance Small ePhotomaker kit Dimensions: 45cm x 65cm Price: £49.99* inc. VAT. Large ePhotomaker kit Dimensions: 68cm x 100cm Price: £79.99* inc. VAT. We clicked with Gives great results, clever design packs down very small, value for money kit Shots in the dark Limited what you can fit in the tent (though a larger size is available), a one trick product Links More Lastolite information www.lastolite.com

If you've been checking out eBay lately, you will see some very professional looking pictures of things people are trying to sell. If you've ever tried taking pictures of shiny subjects then you'll know it's not always easy. Whatever you use for lighting tends to produce gleaming highlights. Step forward the Ephotomaker from Lastolite. This is a pop up light tent designed to get you great results with the minimum fuss.

Features
The Ephotomaker is pretty much a one trick product - if you want to take pictures of shiny things with clean backgrounds it should work for you but it won't help you do much else. From the website and instructions it's clear that Lastolite's target market is people wanting to post images to online auctions who need professional looking results without much fuss and without setting up a whole studio.

In the box
Not a box so much as one of Lastolite's trademark circular blue zip cases. Open the case carefully because there is a grey disk that tends to unfold itself and leap out. You get:

• The light tent - folded into an incredibly small package. Pull it out, shake it and it self assembles using springy rods inside. There are useful instructions on how to get it back in the bag.
• A rod that attaches with Velcro to the back of the tent to hold it semi rigid.
• A grey target. This allows you to set the white balance and exposure correctly. It's also good for jumping out and hitting you in the face when you open the bag.
• A mini tripod to support your camera. Note the “mini” bit. This will happily hold a compact and some bridge cameras but don't try it with your DSLR.
• A blue piece of cellophane and a couple of clips. Lastolite recommend using a desk lamp to light your tent and this film corrects a standard 100 watt bulb to something much closer to daylight temperature.

On test
There was plenty of light coming through a big window so I used daylight instead of a lamp. On a duller day and angle poise would have worked well. At ThinkCamera we have plenty of shiny things to photograph so I took pictures of various cameras in different finishes plus some small ornaments and a white iPod.

I used a number of different compact cameras all with different controls for setting the exposure.

Results
My first shot with the Ephotomaker was of a group of 3 cameras using a Canon A620. I set the white balance off the grey disk, set the exposure also from the grey disk and took a shot. Wow - I was amazed at the results straight from camera. Beautifully illuminated products with a crisp white background. By setting the exposure carefully (put the grey disk in the tent, point the camera at the target, half press the shutter then remove the disk and shoot) almost all the creases from the tent vanished and I was left with a lovely image that would look very professional on a website.

Further tests found some of the weak spots of the Ephotomaker. Most of them are actually weaknesses of the various cameras I used. Using your own camera you might need to play around with some of the settings until you find what works for you but the Ephotomaker is capable of very good results.

Here are some of the issues I had - but remember I believe all of these can be resolved with a little care and practise.

Some cameras simply could not focus on the grey target. I'm really not sure why but apart from the A620 practically every camera struggled. This is annoying because using the target and half pressing the shutter gives a great exposure. If the camera can't focus then you can't set exposure. On a camera with full manual settings you can just set the exposure without focusing. On a camera that lacks manual mode you just need to play with exposure compensation until you get the result you want.

For “proper” white background pictures you normally light the background and product separately. This isn't really possible on the Ephotomaker and would be very tricky to do if it was possible. This means that white subjects tend to “bleed” into the background and lose their edges. The iPod particularly suffered from this. There's a very simple solution - drop a piece of coloured paper in the tent and use that as the background instead!

Our Verdict

If you want to take professional looking pictures of small shiny things then go and buy an Ephotomaker. It's that simple. However, if you don't want to do that then this is a gadget you won't use - it excels at one thing but doesn't do anything else. There are many homebrew recipes on the web for making your own light tent. It's true that making one out of net curtains will save you some money but it's unlikely to be as well built as the Lastolite Ephotomaker. When you realise that you get the tent, daylight filter, grey target and tripod for less than £50 it starts to look like good value. You may need to fiddle with your camera to get the best results but once you have it figured out you should get great pictures every time.