This is driving me NUTS!

Bristolian

Bristolian

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So, I'm back in the office for the first time in almost 2 weeks and they ask me to shoot a prototype of a new product that is getting close to launch.

Okay, nothing wrong with that, except this "thing" has a highly polished, 200mm diameter, stainless steel ball on the top which reflects everything - check it out ...

ball_1_web by Steve Goodfellow, on Flickr

I tried all sorts today, even putting the device in my light tent but that was actually worse because instead of this beautiful polished monstrosity I got a dull white/grey monstrosity that reflected the inside of the tent perfectly - and still had me in shot :(

Does anyone have any ideas for this? It needs to look like a ball and not a flat disc.
 
Just thinking out loud.

A larger than usual light tent lit from outside it has as even as possible Illumination. NB the reason I say a large tent is to have enough distance from the surface to the "walls".

Edit ~ I wonder if you could create a balloon light tent and use a fan to create positive pressure to keep it inflated thus the reflection might be 'invisible' ~ a little like a spherical infinity curve?

To avoid being seen in shot, use another "wall" for the tent again with light(s) outside shining through the material. On this "wall" cut a hole to push the lens through that is snug fit......thus making, other than hopefully an evenly lit sphere, the only reflection being a relatively small black circle.
Note - the same aim is to only have a single dark spot reflection would apply whatever style/type of light tent (cuboid or spherical!)

As I say, just thinking out loud as to how to control the reflections and get a usable image???
 
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does it really matter? at the end of the day its a steel ball, how would anyone want to see a steel ball? theres nothing to see,I take photos of mirrors,
but its the frames people look at, not the mirror itself, if i took a photo of just the glass with nothing else showing what have i achieved?
and yes mirrors are a pain to shoot, ,but i only want shots of the frames.
 
I photographed shiny reflective watches once, used the light tent lit from outside, hung black fabric on the 'roof' of the tent and down the front and cut a hole for the lens to poke through.

The black added some needed contrast to the reflections and you could not see the camera lens at all. The watches had small curved reflective surfaces, too many to 'touch up' after if I used a white front that would show the black lens, not sure if this would work for you as it is much more reflective but may be worth trying. I would imagine you would get a black stripe that could be softened after.

T
 
Shoot through a one way mirror? A reflective sphere is always going to reflect whatever's around.
 
never thought of doing that. It would most likely work but it would have to be rather large to hide the camera and you, or fairly close to the sphere.
the alternative is to dab putty or dulling spray, on to the area that is reflecting back the camera and tripod. and use a remote release.

reflective metal looks best when it does include reflections, other than the camera and photographer.
the reflection of the camera will be smallest when it is further away, so use a long lens ( it is also easier to retouch out.
 
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mark richards said:
does it really matter? at the end of the day its a steel ball, how would anyone want to see a steel ball?
Click to expand...

I'm thinking this too.
It looks rubbish reflecting your office but maybe if you photographed it outside in a park or similar it would give a more pleasing reflection ... you might even be able to shoot through a bush or something to hide both yourself and your equipment?
 
I think an outdoor shot is the answer. Thanks for the ideas, folks :)
 
mark richards said:
does it really matter? at the end of the day its a steel ball, how would anyone want to see a steel ball? theres nothing to see,I take photos of mirrors,
but its the frames people look at, not the mirror itself, if i took a photo of just the glass with nothing else showing what have i achieved?
and yes mirrors are a pain to shoot, ,but i only want shots of the frames.
Click to expand...

TBH, it's what's in the shot that's the problem - even when I'm not in it :)

I did some shots at a golf club about 3 weeks ago so I think I will just cut the device out of that and go with it.
 
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gramps said:
I'm thinking this too.
It looks rubbish reflecting your office but maybe if you photographed it outside in a park or similar it would give a more pleasing reflection ... you might even be able to shoot through a bush or something to hide both yourself and your equipment?
Click to expand...

Hi Gramps,

I already have some outside shots of the device so will have to cut it out of one of those. Marketing people have no idea of how hard this stuff can be :D
 
I don't know how this can be fixed but I thought it might be worth thinking about making the reflection work for you... maybe a company logo and the MD's beaming face or another image of the product for an infinity mirror like effect.
 
I'd be tempted to take it to the park or somewhere and shoot with a long lens, your reflection will be pretty small and easy enough to remove/clone in PP.
 
swanseamale47 said:
I'd be tempted to take it to the park or somewhere and shoot with a long lens, your reflection will be pretty small and easy enough to remove/clone in PP.
Click to expand...

The shots I took on the golf course were done just like that. I was able to clone myself out of those - I'm going to cut the device out of one of those and put it onto a transparent background - it's for a brochure and web site.

Thankfully our other products are all painted so they're a doddle to shoot :)

Steve
 
get them to buy security glass / mirror like in those awful supermarkets.

Failing that you have to get yourself in a very plain reflection that could be edited out easily. A large white wall would do it just fine.

At least you don't have to shoot a bathroom with mirrors on each side from ceiling to the floor. Just imagine what you would do then. I had that fun.
 
Clean space, use the timer so you're gone out of the shot and it'll be much easier to clone out
 
Angle of incidence = Angle of reflectance... All you have to do is create the environment for the reflections...
 
PhilH04 said:
Angle of incidence = Angle of reflectance... All you have to do is create the environment for the reflections...
Click to expand...

Umm, this is an orb - it has every conceivable angle of incidence. Aside from putting it inside a larger sphere with a non-reflective coating on the inside you will always have something to reflect and no matter where you shoot from the camera will always be seen in the reflection.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
get them to buy security glass / mirror like in those awful supermarkets.

Failing that you have to get yourself in a very plain reflection that could be edited out easily. A large white wall would do it just fine.

At least you don't have to shoot a bathroom with mirrors on each side from ceiling to the floor. Just imagine what you would do then. I had that fun.
Click to expand...

Now that would be interesting! You could always smash the mirrors :)
 
Bristolian said:
The shots I took on the golf course were done just like that. I was able to clone myself out of those - I'm going to cut the device out of one of those and put it onto a transparent background - it's for a brochure and web site.

Thankfully our other products are all painted so they're a doddle to shoot :)

Steve
Click to expand...
Steve what is it? It looks like the top of a Van de Graaff generator to me.
 
Bristolian said:
Umm, this is an orb - it has every conceivable angle of incidence. Aside from putting it inside a larger sphere with a non-reflective coating on the inside you will always have something to reflect and no matter where you shoot from the camera will always be seen in the reflection.
Click to expand...
You still need to create the environment, add a touch of post processing to remove any unwanted, unavoidable reflections.
Personally my approach would be several exposures and combine in post to give the desired result, that way you can place reflections of white and black where you need them.
 
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If you shoot it outside in a natural environment. Shoot it from more than one angle and height but the same relative distance. You will then find it very easy to clone out unwanted reflections as you will have plenty of appropriate material to use. It will look right, as we are uncritical of what we see as spherical reflections.
 
swanseamale47 said:
Steve what is it? It looks like the top of a Van de Graaff generator to me.
Click to expand...

Not a bad guess, Wayne, but actually it is pretty much the exact opposite of a VDG.

Sorry, I have to be a bit guarded but we haven't announced it to the world yet - that will happen in October.
 
I will spill the beans after the product launch in October - you never know you might want one :)
 
Having shot absolutely dozens of similar balls, mostly as curtain finials, stair parts etc. I can say its not easy and as usual there is no one exact answer, it is going to depend on your exact product.

I shot a collection of over 250 Christmas baubles as well.

First thing. Ditch the light tent, throw it in the bin. They are useless for exactly the reason you describe. I'd never use one.

Then its all down to lighting, flagging, bouncing, you need to have multiple studio heads and different types of modifiers to be able to obtain all the graduation. I'd usually use between 3-5 heads, Probably a large 1.5 softbox overhead, another 1m softbox to one side, probably either small softbox 60cm or a reflector behind, bouncing back, then at the fron on the other side, probably a refectored bouncing off a large reflector or shooting through a trace panel. Then to give me the reflection I wanted a nice tight grid, direct on to the product. Throw a bunch of reflectors and flags in there and keep adjusting as needed.
 
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How about big black on white polkadots from the shooting direction with a single colour behind the object. The reflected dots emphasise the curves while the plain background give the overall shape.
 
StewartR said:
How will that help? Please do explain.
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Because you can shift the lens left or right to ensure you are not in the shot.

I was about 3 feet to the left of the mirror

p1825035038-5.jpg


The beige chair was directly in front of it.

Similar thing

p1740344826-5.jpg
 
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troutfisher said:
Because you can shift the lens left or right to ensure you are not in the shot.
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Yeah yeah. But you haven't really though this through, have you. The tilt-shift trick only works on flat mirrors. When the mirror is spherical, there's nowhere you can put the camera where it won't be in the reflection, because everything is in the reflection.
 
Bristolian said:
Does anyone have any ideas for this? It needs to look like a ball and not a flat disc.
Click to expand...
Photograph it's reflection in a mirror...
By photographing the reflection of the sphere in a mirror you convert a reflective spherical object into a reflective flat object. You can then use the angle of the mirror to reduce the reflection of the camera/tripod. You would need to place the camera *behind* and to the side of the sphere.
Another advantage of photographing it's reflection in a mirror is that the distance is actually the total distance from the camera, to the mirror, and then to the sphere. That means you can rather easily significantly extend the camera to subject distance reducing the size of the camera's reflection.
However, the mirror itself will be reflected in the sphere, as well as anything it is reflecting at that angle of incidence. The overall result will/should be a much smaller reflection towards the side of the sphere where it can be edited out much more easily. You could use the mirror trick to take two images, one from each side which would each have the camera reflection on that side... then composite them together.

Alternatively, you could make a lightprobe image.
 
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