Beginner Advice on Reflections

Jim_Tod

Jim_Tod

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I've been playing about today with some still life with flash.

Would appreciate any advice on avoiding/ minimising the reflections on the salt and pepper cellars, mainly the 2 vertical stripes on the upper half of the pepper (assuming this is direct and incident from the salt and also the hilit areas left and right on the waist of the salt cellar.

I appreciate that this might not be possible just due to the shape and material of the cellars but even confirmation of that would let me stop flogging a dead horse.

Lighting was a speedlight on stand in a bowens collar with a snoot. Speedlight high, 45-60 deg left of camera and centred roughly on the upper half of the salt cellar( I think)

I even put a polariser on the lens but either I wasn't using it correctly or the angle of the reflection was in the wrong direction for the polariser to deal with

S&P Feedback by Jim Tod, on Flickr
 
Polariser won't help here, needs to be a specific angle. You need flags and reflectors, the shape needs to be defined by the reflectors and the excess reflections controlled with flags...
 
Thanks for that. I can see how the reversal could work with there being less reflection from the pepper. How would a larger light source work?
 
Jim_Tod said:
Thanks for that. I can see how the reversal could work with there being less reflection from the pepper. How would a larger light source work?
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The hard reflected highlights just above the collar are specular highlights and are a function of the harsh (small) light source and will reduce as the light source becomes either larger or further away from the subject. This will of course have an effect on the overall result or feel of the picture, will reduce the hard defined edges of the shadows and so on. The other option if the result you have is one you like would be to use a small diffuser or flag (small square of tracing paper) between the light source (but close to it) and the high lights on the collar to reduce the intensity of the light falling on that area.
 
paul williams said:
The other option if the result you have is one you like would be to use a small diffuser or flag (small square of tracing paper) between the light source (but close to it) and the high lights on the collar to reduce the intensity of the light falling on that area.
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Paul, thanks for the info. I generally like the look of this with the fairly tight shadow. I'll give it a go again with some tracing paper as a flag and see how I get on.
 
Technically it's not a specular reflection (reflection of the light source) but the white salt reflected against the dark pepper pot, so using a softer light wouldn't change that - but would certainly completely change all the the shadows. Swapping the salt and pepper may well improve matters, but the reflection would swap around too.

The traditional method, just by adjusting the lighting, would be to put something dark around the salt pot like a strip of black paper to kill the reflection while also being invisible to the camera, but that would be difficult and probably involve changing the composition quite a bit to make it work.

But digital allows us to do things differently and comping is the complete solution - basically taking another shot with the salt removed and compositing the two images together in post-processing. Easy if you have suitable software. On the other hand, a quick and dirty fix would be to simply use a local adjustment brush and darken down the reflection. That would be my favoured option, not because it's very easy (30 seconds work in Lightroom) but because the reflection is entirely natural and it's things like that - highlights, shadows and reflections - that are essential to show shape and texture. The reflection is just a bit too strong there, making it distracting, so I'd just tone it down a bit.
 
The bright spots of light on the salt cellar just above the collar are specular in nature. This part of the discussion wasn't about the reflection in the pepper cellar. Personally I always go for an in camera solution if at all possible as this is the best way to learn about lighting IMO
 
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paul williams said:
....and will reduce as the light source becomes either larger or further away from the subject...
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Or closer to the subject...

I'm not sure the issue w/ the salt is the hardness of the light really; I think it probably has more to do with the direction of the light and refraction (rather than strictly reflection). There's also a large area along the right side of the salt showing a similar refraction issue...
I can't come up with any kind of solution other than completely changing the lighting setup, which obviously would not work if this it the mood/look you are going for.
Reversing them would have the shadow side of the salt being reflected in the illuminated side of the pepper which would help, but I don't think it would eliminate the issue.

As has been said, the only thing I can come up with is compositing multiple images... probably with different lighting setups for different elements.

Of course I could be wrong, but I think this is probably a lot more complicated than it would first appear. Typically I would light this quite differently using mostly back/side lighting (dark field lighting), and a lower level of fill from the front (large reflective panel)... but I suspect even that might have some issues at first try.
 
Its a learning experience so thanks all for the comments and theres a few things in there for me to try out- in camera and in computer
 
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