Polarizers and interiors...furniture glare

[Andrew Garrard]

At the risk of replying to myself... it belatedly occurred to me: I'm no portrait photographer, but does the "polarise the flash and cross-polarise the lens" approach work for taking shine off portraits?

 

Just curious.

[Ed_Ingold]

Polarizing sheets are available up to 18"x18" from B&H. Crossed polarizers (including one on the lens) are used for special purposes when copying textured things like oil paintings, to eliminate specular reflections. Only scattered light is used for the photograph. More often than not, texture is something you want to capture, as long as it doesn't obscure the details. Polarization is probably the method of last resort.

 

You want a certain amount of "shine" in a portrait, which you control with the angle and type of the lighting, and makeup.

[mike_halliwell]

a certain amount of "shine" in a portrait, which you control with the angle and type of the lighting, and makeup

Varying the degree of polarization, via rotation, can make a person's skin go from dead flat to fully shiny. Fairly simple for one light source, such as a single big soft-box, but once multiple lights are used, you either need to polarize all the lights into the same plane or the camera filter will not work evenly and you get the ability to 'quench' one reflection at a time but not all at the same time..... or rely on angles and makeup.

 

I suppose the aim is probably a 'natural look' which is very subjective. I hate the modern fashion for heavy matt foundation that result in an unnatural mannequin-like appearance. Luckily I don't have to shoot people very often...:-)

 

Showing a client an image of their treasured, but varnish crazed picture, in fully polarized lighting is often very entertaining, especially if the individual varnish flakes have cupped. There's no natural way of lighting millions of little concave pieces so as to see through to the image below. They think it's magic!

 

The colours and details are immediately much more obvious but do produce an image that some people find very false as it is so far from the normal view. Showing someone a two layer blend of polarized and non-polarised and getting them to say which blend they like is the only way I found to keep them happy, as it's such a personal choice. I personally like the strong colours and details of the fully polarised look, but the texture of things like brush strokes can be too flattened.

 

If you only want to polarise lights up to about A3/A2 in size, by far the cheapest way is to get the repair sheets for LCD screens....such as

 

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[Andrew Garrard]

Thanks, both. It only just occurred to me to try it, and since my wife (who has somewhat shiny skin) wants a passport photo soon, it struck me that holding a polariser over the flash gun might be useful. Although since I've normally used some flash modifiers, I think all bets will be off. Might be a useful thing to know for some candids, though.

 

I doubt it works for red-eye, but I'm curious whether it does anything for animals with a tapetum lucidum (having spent some time trying to sort out weird eye reflections in old cat photos recently).

 

Edit: Today I Found Out (while checking on eye shine in animals): the brownsnout spookfish (along with the glasshead barreleye, which I've seen on Blue Planet 2) has a fresnel-like mirror in its secondary pair of eyes, in place of a lens. Cool. Also, the tapetum lucidum of a tiger is green, which was an alarmingly specific fact in an otherwise generic Wikipedia article, and which will give me plenty of opportunities to freak out at distant traffic lights next time I'm in a country with tigers. I vaguely wonder why there aren't (I think) animals using bioluminescence to detect predators (or prey) by their eye shine, although you'd want to be able to cloak it so it didn't just act as a "food is here" label.

Edited May 1, 2019 by Andrew Garrard

[John Di Leo]

Thanks for all the thought from everyone who has contributed to this. Lots of thought provoking ideas

Just want to add some more info, or reiterate...

I am using a tripod, and long exposures, ie 1/4 sec and above. I am shooting at 400 ISO (d810) on a tripod. Nothing is handheld.

 

To the right of the piece is both the french doors and a wall sconce, sometimes used and sometimes not. The french doors have sheer curtains over them that I generally kept closed. The shutters outside the french doors were tried in various positions, including fully closed.

On the "left wall" is another wall sconce that I generally left on as well as a reading light across a queen sized bed to my left---the warm colors come from those--all incandescent. These are 15+ feet away from the armoire.

 

I think the idea of putting something to hang over the french doors outside, might have some merit, though, although access is available in this case, it may not be in upcoming shoots...I don't know what the houses are like.

 

Are sheer curtains a "poor man's diffuser?"

 

The pictures have gone to the book editor who will likely have input and, like many of you, may not have a problem with the glare.

 

Again, thanks for the thoughtful advice from all.

 

snip...If you don't want the fuss of setting up lights and diffusers, a bounced flash, placed directly above the lens (to eliminate visible shadows, works. The entire room becomes the soft box. I would use a diffusing cap pointed straight up to further the effect. There would be some direct reflection from the cap, but probably minimal.

 

When moving the point of view, you can avoid convergence by keeping the camera parallel to the wall. You could use a tilt-shift lens, or a wider than necessary lens, then crop the results.

 

The 20mm Nikkor is more than wide enough, but keeping it straight requires some attention. Minimal elevation is something to be tried. But again, each home will be different, but hoping not to re-invent the wheel each time.

 

Bouncing a flash with the diffuser is a good, though untried at this point, suggestion. Of course that means I have to buy a flash. Thus far I've only used the built-in flash as a filler for people shots, but I have had my eye on a speedlight 300 for a while. Should that be an effective choice to this type of work? I have always tried to avoid flashes, because of perceived increases in complexity.

 

Throw something else out, now that I am thinking about it.

Would you tether the camera to a laptop to see taken images real time, or simply examine the LCD display, zooming in as necessary?

I used LV for critical focusing. Two obs...when shooting in low light there's a LOT of noise in LV when zoomed in, and, LV eats a battery. I had an extra with me but may consider bringing the ac adapter in the future.