Photographing Highly reflective Product

<p>I am amateur photographer planning to capture photos for my products to use in a catalouge. the product I am trying to capture photo is pollished marble and Granite Slabs in approximately dimensions of 180*300 cm.<br>

The problem is that the product is highly reflective and i will get shadow of myself and surrounding in the picture.<br>

I do not have equipment like soft box. besides the size of product is big and heavy then I cannot take it to a studio.<br>

I was thinking of buying a plorized filter. I dont know wether it will be helpful or not.<br>

& if the filter is usefule which one I should buy.<br>

I appreciate any help or guide.<br>

I am using Nikon d3100 with kit lens.</p>

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<p>If you have Photoshop then just retouching the image might be the best way. But if you don't have access to it then reducing your refection photographically is your only way.</p>

<p>Any shiny surface will reflect anything that has light on it,<br />therefore you need to minimize the light on everything in the room except for<br />the shiny subject itself. This can entail photographing in a room that can be<br />totally darkened, then turning off all the lights in the room except for those<br />directly used to illuminate the subject.</p>

<p>But because regular studio lights are designed to light up<br />large areas, unmodified they will spread their light throughout the room<br />illuminating things you don't want photographed, so you need to add snoots or<br />some similar device to narrow their light to a point just big enough to light<br />your subject and nothing else.</p>

<p>Then to further minimize your reflection you need to hide the<br />camera behind something black, like a 4x8 piece of black foam core, with a hole<br />cut in just big enough for the lens. It also helps to photograph the subject<br />from as far away as possible, so use as long of a focal length as is<br />practicable.</p>

<p>use two studio (or even work) lights placed at 45 degree angles to the surface you're trying to shoot. If you use work lights, you'll need a tripod because your exposure time will become too long to hand hold with sharp results.<br>

As for your reflection, either use a longer lens, or as Mike says, use some dark cloth or cardboard to hide your reflection.<br>

You absolutely cannot do this with on-camera flash, it requires external lighting.<br>

<Chas></p>

<p>When photographing polished surfaces, the reflections <strong>are </strong>the surface. Crossed polarizers will work, but in lieu of that, you need to light the slabs so that reflections of the light aren't seen by the camera. Shield the light so it doesn't strike you or the camera either, using gobos or barn doors. If you want to highlight the surfaces, use strategically placed reflectors (e.g., poster board), not the light itself.</p>

<p>You should buy a copy of "Light, Science and Magic" by Fuqua, <em>et. al</em>. , which describes various lighting strategies for reflective and transparent objects in great detail.</p>

<p>You need to construct a special area and place these objects inside. You can use white cloth such as bed sheets or curtain material and construct a tent. If you are using hot lights, best to use fiberglass curtain material as it is fireproof. You can also use foam core insulation material found at building supply stores. The idea is to place the objects inside a tent made up of very white materials. The lighting is via the lamps either filtering through the white cloth or peeking through holes. The light is directed not at the subject but at the walls and ceiling of the enclosure. Additionally you can build a small enclosure using white Styrofoam packing material. You can get the Styrofoam in bricks or blocks and use them to built a temporary enclosure. You can test this theory by building a small enclosure and photograph shinny objects like jewelry. Undesirable highlights can be dulled using hair spray or a sprayer using water mixed with talcum power.</p>

<p>yes, for a large object anyway, the best thing is to use some white bedsheets to rig your own tent. If you do this often, invest in some pipes, boards, or tubing to make a frame.</p>

<p>Those slabs are 10ft x 6ft and would need a king sized double sheet and more. Perhaps the solution is to work at night in your workshop. open the camera's shutter and walk around with a single lamp during a long exposure .... but a digital camera may not permit a long enough exposure for that technique or have a slow enough ISO... then there is the problem of noise that long exposures give.<br>

To avoid getting reflections of you and the camera the basic rule is hide yourself and the camera from any light. If there is no light then there is no reflection.<br>

Have a black cloth with a small hole for the lens to look through and shutter whatever lights you have from shining on the black cloth. In a workshop I would run string from side to side to hang black clothes from to have your lights only playing on the marble.<br>

10x6 ft is quite a big area to 'copy' and for even light you may need four lights rather than two at 45 degrees and direct them so they overlap in the middle. Light falls off in power at the inverse square of the light to subject distance so you can either keep the lights back from the subject or have more lights to minimise the difference in distance from the lights of the edge and centre of the slab. At least you don't have to worry about subject movement during long exposures, just camera movement so use the 10 second delay release and don't touch the camera during countdown and exposure..<br>

The trouble with our suggestions is that with getting rid of all the reflections you may end up with a dull and lifeless slab while controlled reflections may be what you need to add life. Here you can have gaps to the white surrounds suggested so you get a shadow effect to break up the even soft light. One photographer wrote that he strung the backing papers from the 120 film rolls he shot over his white light tent to break up the even light to cast shadows to show the shape of objects he was photographing.<br>

I'm currently photographing grave stones and strike the polished ones from time to time and keeping myself out of view and getting a useful reflection to help show the inscription has been my target, but they are all rather smaller than your subjects.</p>

<p>Dark room--blacked out, control your lights' spill so you aren't lit and wear dark clothes (45 degree lighting is a good suggestion as is a longer lens). Probably wouldn't be an issue if you can do all of these things. Harder for amateur than pro, but that is the great thing about digital, you can shoot until you get it right.</p>

<p>Also it will help if you use the max power of light possible, fastest shutter speed--anything you can to keep any reflective light as underexposed as possible.</p>

<p>This is not really much different than shooting copy shots of photographs or other art work--think in those terms if you have ever done that.</p>

I would point out one thing. Is it important to show that the marble/granite is highly polished with a shiny surface? Shiny things look shiny because they have reflections. Eliminate all the reflections and it looks like a flat dull surface.

 

I once made up this web page to show people how to make shiny chrome lighters look like shiny chrome lighters:

 

http://jdainis.com/zipp.html

 

You will have to include some reflections if you want to make your marble/granite look highly polished.

<p>I second getting a copy of "Light, Science and Magic". There are chapters that cover this issue.</p>

<p>Thanks to all responses, I appreciate your great Ideas.<br>

I will use all the great hints you mentioned.<br>

but I really Liked the Idea of minimizing or controlling the light for everything in room except the object i'm photographing,<br>

As the purpuse of taking these photos is for the cataluge I prefer no reflection of other object because I want only pattern and texture of marble to be in picture.<br>

the tent Idea was nice if my object was bit smaller and easy to move around.<br>

Also the idea of having gaps to the white surrounds was interesting as I could control the reflection but not totally omit it.<br>

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