photographing a highly reflective silver chalice (trophy)

I have a need to photograph a silver chalice about 18" high and 12"

wide. I will be shooting it against a black velvet background but the

final image will be stripped out. I am using a single overhead strobe

light with 40 degree difuser and then filtered through a white "sail

cloth" material. I am still able to maintain an f stop of f22 on my

light meter reading. I took a polaroid that still seemed a little

dark. So I bracketed from f16 to f32 using Fuji rdpII (100asa)positive

film. I positioned a 2' by 4' white reflector in front to hide the

reflection of the camera, tripod and photographer. And, used a 1' by

1' white reflector on the left side to create an interesting edge.

 

The end result was not acceptable because:

1- Overall darkness of image (all brackets)

2- Didn't capture the brillance of the highly polished surface of the

trophy.

 

However, there were no real hot spots from the overhead light.

 

Any suggestions??

Hi Jim,

 

My best recommendation is to check your library for "Light-Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting". I believe chapter 6 is about photographing metal. This is an excellent, extremely comprehensive book disguised as a simple book. The larger bookstores (Barnes & Noble, etc.) probably stock it; about $30 in softcover, I think.

 

I would suggest trying your main light source (with large sailcloth diffuser) directly to one side and something like your (tall) white reflector card on the other side. This should make both sides bright. Black cards (or tape stripes) at the appropriate places will put dark traces along decorative contours of the chalice. For other places that you want to "shine", put a white reflector card in the appropriate place..

 

The key thing to remember is that you are not so much photographing this chalice directly; rather you are mainly photographing the REFLECTIONS OF YOUR LIGHT SOURCES. If you were to photograph a mirror, you would realize that you are taking pictures of what�s reflected in it. Shooting polished silver is very similar; just not so obvious.

Also, nothing wrong with spending quite a few hours adusting your lighting and experimenting. Mainly because you will! Exposure -- If you are using a macro bellows type lense extension you need to calculate the additional exposure required. You can also use mirrors instead of the white cards. And yes, use of black cards is also effective in enhancing shiny objects. Welcome to the nightmare...

Steve Simmon's book on using the large format camera has examples in the back (tabletop, architecture, etc.), virtually all of which use artificial lighting. There is one particular shot of two wine glasses and a bottle of wine. The text describes exactly how it was done (as I recall, one strobe to one side and lots of white reflector cards, the movements used, etc.). As your problems seem similar to this situation, I recommend you check out his book.

Jim

 

Just an alternative thought.

 

How about shooting it outside, natural light. Still put a background behind it to make the cut out easier. Get well back and use a tele lens to get a big image. Incident or grey card metering, plus bracket.

 

At least, with this technique, what you will be photographing will be what you can see, not the 1000th of a second of artificial light that

you can only guess at.

 

You will need to be careful with location to avoid the wrong sorts of reflections.

 

Ken

I think that your problem may be that you don't have enough "white stuff" reflecting in the chalice. Try surrounding the chalice in a "tent" of translucent white nylon (except for the background and a hole to put the lens through ). Flash through the nylon on one side of the chalice, and enough light should bounce around inside the "tent" to fill in the shadows. The reflection of all of that "white stuff" will brighten up the silver considerably. If shadows are not filled in sufficiently by the bounced light you can always add a second flash on the other side of the "tent".

Also, I agree 100% with the recommendation about the book "Light: Science & Magic" (by Hunter and Fuqua, BTW). It contains excellent techniques for photographing difficult surfaces like metal and glass.

Good luck!

Jim, Carlos Co. pointed out this website (lots of photoflex equipment demo�d) in a posting today. I took a look and one example is very similar to your situation.

 

http://www.webphotoschool.com/WPS/public/lesson1.html

 

But I still recommend the book, "Light-Science and Magic...".