For those of us who sell on ebay.  Does anyone use portable soft lightbox to take pics of minifigs and smaller sets?  Ez cube while top grade is a little too expensive and will not pay for itself for awhile and do it yourself setup is not very portable. So are there any other decent quality portable lighting kits that are available?  I of course looked on ebay and saw bunch of them for 30 dollars but they looked like cheap knockoffs to me.  

DIY can be VERY portable, and much cheaper than a fold-up box. Get some PVC and joint fittings to make a frame (with multiple lengths you can use the same joints to make larger and larger boxes), some ultra-white bristol board for the backdrop, some white muslin fabric for light filtering. I have a pop-up cube but usually just use my DIY setup.

 

Be prepared to play whack-a-mole with other sellers using your photos, as eBay does next to nothing to punish those who lift them. Some of mine have migrated and ended up as official product photos on Amazon.

http://www.wikihow.com/Create-an-Inexpensive-Photography-Lightbox

 

I made my own using a box ala the link.  Works descent enough and worked out to like 40 bucks total for it (+22 for a tripod).

For those of us who sell on ebay.  Does anyone use portable soft lightbox to take pics of minifigs and smaller sets?  Ez cube while top grade is a little too expensive and will not pay for itself for awhile and do it yourself setup is not very portable. So are there any other decent quality portable lighting kits that are available?  I of course looked on ebay and saw bunch of them for 30 dollars but they looked like cheap knockoffs to me.  

 

when you say "portable", is it because:

 

1.  you want to carry it around; or

2.  you have limited space and want to break it down when not in use?

 

if #2 is the reason, you can setup a simple lightbox using a white bedsheet (walmart $5 bucks) with some strings.

 

btw, in my opinion, the most important part is to use "natural day light" or full-spectrum light bulbs (LED or CFL) that are around 1600 lumens (i am currently using ottlite model# 25ed12r). 

 

just be aware that some of the so-called "day light" bulbs are bright but not full-spectrum so they cast a yellowish light.

Be prepared to play whack-a-mole with other sellers using your photos, as eBay does next to nothing to punish those who lift them. Some of mine have migrated and ended up as official product photos on Amazon.

 

I think eBay will ask the infringer to take down the offending images but unless you keep complaining, it will never stop.

 

I do however watermark my images (have to adjust the size anyway)...

I personally don't care if someone steals my image.  It's not a work of art and there are plenty of stock photos floating around.  It's a relatively small hit to the likelihood of me selling an item.  I wanted stow away lightbox so I can carry it around easily and the one that doesn't take a lot of space when not in use.  Lights is a nice feature of the kit too.  Whatever they don't pick up a settop camera flash will make up for it reasonably well.

 

It's just 30 dollar kits on ebay seem like a total waste of money in terms of quality and durability and 200+ for ez cube is a bit too much.  So I was looking for something in between.