Would a CPL filter help?

[cw318is]

One thing that has always annoyed me about this shot:

Dornier Dassault Alpha Jet by cw318is, on Flickr

Is the reflections on the canopy. Would a circular polariser help? Can't really do a lot about the lighting (massive floodlights) and not fussed about having to drop a stop as its tripod stuff anyway. There is a similar shoot coming up soon and I don't want to make the same mistake!

 

[Bennp2000]

yes, in the same way you can use it to cut reflections from a water surface.

 

[Cuchulainn]

It will help a bit, but as the reflection from the canopy is fairly square on, the reflected light won't be as polarised as that from more grazing angles. Still worth using though to get whatever improvement you can.

 

[wildman]

I always thought the light / reflections had to be perpendicular to the CPL to get the best results, although I could be mistaken with that ?

 

[HoppyUK]

The angles are wrong. Needs to be 30-40 degrees to the surface (Brewster's Angle) to reduce reflections and that's almost square on. Wouldn't do any harm to try, but it may also have other effects on the body of the plane that you may or may not like - unless the plane is bare metal, in which case a polariser would have no effect.

You could easily tone down the windscreen reflection in photoshop. Just dull it down to a shade of grey so it's less prominent and I think it would look fine.