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Archive 2015 · Lighting advice needed

  
 
pjbuehner
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Lighting advice needed


Hello,
I am really wrestling with a shot and wonder if anyone can chime in with advice. I am shooting door knobs, all of which are highly reflective solid brass. After two days of experimenting, I can only assume that there is a decent amount of Photoshop work done after the fact. (granted product photography is a long shot from sports)
I have
a Light tent, multiple strobes, lots of foam core, gobos, etc


So far, I have used between 1 and four lights and so many different modifiers but nothing is making me say "that's it".

The closest I have come to a decent shot OOC is with a light tent plus a piec of plastic arched over the knob inside the tent.

My issue is the reflection. The knobs are so mirrored that every seam and zipper in the shed is quite obvious. when I place the arched plastic over the knob inside the tent, it is better but I still have the lens reflection to deal with.
Anyone shot these or similar objects? I want to get as close to done in camera to minimize the editing work since I might be shooting a lot of these. Thanks for any suggestions.

A few samples
The first is with the plastic over the top and a black gobo in the rear and front of the tent. The second is in the tent alone and just a quick removal of the lens reflection in PS



© pjbuehner 2015

With a few minutes of pp done







Again, a few minutes of PP done.




Aug 24, 2015 at 02:36 PM
story_teller
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Lighting advice needed


Rather than surrounding the door knob with white surfaces, try black, non-reflective to minimize reflected light. Black will absorb or minimize reflections. If you need a high key background, you can always cut and paste to a high key background. Just a thought.


Aug 24, 2015 at 05:12 PM
Lauchlan Toal
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Lighting advice needed


I think you need to make the background brighter, maybe blow it out by a third of a stop. Then, really simplify the reflectors. The fewer the better, since with multiple reflectors you see weird reflections. I'd say one on each side, at most, and as close as you can get them. Also, you may benefit from using beige or grey reflectors depending on the subject, so that reflections aren't pure white.


Aug 24, 2015 at 06:50 PM
Gregg Heckler
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Lighting advice needed


"Rather than surrounding the door knob with white surfaces, try black, non-reflective to minimize reflected light. Black will absorb or minimize reflections. If you need a high key background, you can always cut and paste to a high key background. Just a thought."

Bingo. First, there is nothing wrong with some specular highlights if they are positioned well. For something this shiny and round it would be impossible to eliminate them. You can remove some in PS but you don't necessarily want to remove all of them. There are other lighting things you can try also like back lighting with a reflector up front, a single light close from the top with black cards on either side, and reflecting into mirrors, or bouncing lighting onto a large reflector or foamcore. All of these were shot with a single head.

















Aug 24, 2015 at 10:41 PM
diamondsdr47
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Lighting advice needed


Hi, at first you have to know what look do you want/need or it specified, you can search door knob images for example..which will lead you to a specific shooting angle, at which you might shoot all the items, the most important part is angle of incidence equals angle of reflection and once you build the set everything will have consistent look, "proper" reflections will define the shape of the object. Hope it helps.


Aug 25, 2015 at 12:25 PM
pjbuehner
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Lighting advice needed


Thanks all for the feedback. I do understand the incidence of angles...the issue with knobs is it is impossible to get the lens outside of them. I am next going to experiment with reflected back lighting using what someone referred to as an "M" card.
Nice shots Gregg!



Aug 25, 2015 at 03:45 PM
Andrew Pece Photography
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Lighting advice needed


The light tents are kinda overused in my estimation. Who wants light just bouncing in every direction, filling every shadow? That is almost the exact opposite of what we are trying to do with lighting.


Aug 26, 2015 at 04:18 AM
Paul_K
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Lighting advice needed


Amongst all the tech talk about lighting set ups I missing a very basic thing I Iearned as indispensable very early on during my years on the Royal Academy in The Hague when shooting shiny objects (in my case all kinds of glass, jewelry etc), namely a polarizer filter.

Yes, it will absorb several stops of lighting, but eliminate much unwanted reflections, thus allowing to concentrate on only those that are left and work with/on them.

I agree with the the light tent comment, they're way overrated and too often used as a 'deus ex machina' device to camouflage lack of technical knowledge.



Aug 26, 2015 at 04:36 AM
cwebster
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Lighting advice needed


I suggest you buy and read "Light -- Science & Magic" by Hunter, Fils, Fuqua, et al. It explains how to control specular reflections to show shape and texture.

<Chas>



Aug 26, 2015 at 06:07 PM
Egor
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Lighting advice needed


have you tried a cone and use gridspots to producue gradated circles of light where you need them?
Gradients and proper use of light diffusion will make all the difference. Light everywhere is flat and does not show shape and texture (as you have seen) Too harsh cutoffs and black areas are amateurish and too harsh.
Gradients and gradated light is your friend.
Build your cone from savage diffusion plastic and tape.
You can remove camera in post-proc usually, but if you really want it out in camera, then you need to put a slightly angled piece of glass in front of the lens that reflects light from sides but can be shot thru (similar to one way mirror glass we use to shoot coins and such)

Above methods are tried and true pro techniques but require some learning curve.
Hope you are charging enough
Good luck!



Aug 27, 2015 at 08:18 AM
pjbuehner
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Lighting advice needed


cwebster wrote:
I suggest you buy and read "Light -- Science & Magic" by Hunter, Fils, Fuqua, et al. It explains how to control specular reflections to show shape and texture.

<Chas>


I have multiple editions of that book. Very good reading.



Aug 27, 2015 at 11:37 AM
pjbuehner
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Lighting advice needed


Egor wrote:
have you tried a cone and use gridspots to producue gradated circles of light where you need them?
Gradients and proper use of light diffusion will make all the difference. Light everywhere is flat and does not show shape and texture (as you have seen) Too harsh cutoffs and black areas are amateurish and too harsh.
Gradients and gradated light is your friend.
Build your cone from savage diffusion plastic and tape.
You can remove camera in post-proc usually, but if you really want it out in camera, then you need to put a slightly angled piece of glass in front of the
...Show more

Thanks so much for this info. I have some Savage translum on the way. Once I get sorted out, I will post some samples.

All the best,
Peter



Aug 27, 2015 at 11:45 AM





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