Light Science and Magic (the book)

Reply to Shooting glassware on location

nobody@flickr.com (epatsellis) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:43:31 -0800

epatsellis posted a reply:

The biggest problem with shooting at f16 is diffraction. It's far better tomshootnat night, or control ambient light more. Ideally, I aim for f5.6 or at most f8 with dslr's ( either my Kodak SLR/n or D2X)

Reply to Shooting glassware on location

nobody@flickr.com (leesure) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 07:05:28 -0800

leesure posted a reply:

Also, f/8 1/125 was obviously enough to allow the ambient in to the picture. Pump up the strobe and push the aperture to f/16 and the shutter speed to max sync speed. That will reduce the impact of the ambient light.

Reply to Shooting glassware on location

nobody@flickr.com (epatsellis) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:11:55 -0800

epatsellis posted a reply:

The long lens is an important tip, when shooting jewelry, I frequently use a 180 2.8 (on a crop body) and for food and drink, typically a 105 2.5 or 135 f2 if I need the aperture for DOF isolation.

Reply to Shooting glassware on location

nobody@flickr.com (eriksweeklyphoto) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 09:52:23 -0800

eriksweeklyphoto posted a reply:

Good suggestion above. Also, if you have the room, back up and use a longer lens. This will reduce the range of angles from which light will be reflected toward your camera allowing you to better select only the ones you want by adjusting the subject and camera positions.

Reply to Shooting glassware on location

nobody@flickr.com (penguindrooster) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 09:03:08 -0800

penguindrooster posted a reply:

Great trick. I'll bring more black foamcore next time.
And it's not so much get rid of all the reflections, but to be able to keep the ones I want and get rid of the others. I was working next to a wall of windows, and shooting a reflective cylinder so I was having a heck of a time even finding where the reflections were coming from.
Any other ways to cut the reflections?

Reply to Shooting glassware on location

nobody@flickr.com (jeffegg2) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 03:11:21 -0800

jeffegg2 posted a reply:

Looks like you needed a black card in front of the glass, and put a hole for the lens in the middle to eliminate all reflections. But why do you want to eliminate all highlights? They give the glass depth.

Shooting glassware on location

nobody@flickr.com (penguindrooster) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 20:33:34 -0800

penguindrooster posted a new topic:

I was shooting drinks in a restaurant yesterday and ran into a reflection problem even though I thought I was using the correct LS&M technique--two black cards on either side of the light source, camera framed right to the edges of the black card. But obviously I got reflections from the whole restaurant in the picture. Is there a solution that works when you're out in the field? My first instinct is to hang black fabric around behind me to get rid of the reflections, but that's not practical when you're in someone else's place of business and there's all kinds of immovable furniture in the way--and the client wanted the shot to show the bar top. Is there another, more flexible way to get rid of the reflections when shooting on location?

Reply to exposure and contrast?

nobody@flickr.com (Fil Hunter) — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:54:44 -0700

Fil Hunter posted a reply:

Terry is right about the value of posting pictures here, but I praise Paul for putting a lot of accurate information in a short space.

Although Paul is completely right about using curves in Photoshop, I'd like to encourage you to try levels also. Curves gives us the better control, I think levels allows us to see better what we are doing. Curves gives us an accurate display of the complete tonal range, and it's not a lot of extra work extra work to find an important tone and figure out where that point lies on the curve. Then we can raise or lower the value of that important tone and put it exactly where we want it.

Levels does not give us such a precise location of any particular tone, but it does give us a better representation of where all of the tones group, and if we place one of the tones where we like it, we get a better idea of whether we are plunging large groups of tones into lost shadow or lost highlight.

Try both, in Photoshop adjustment layers, then turn the adjustment layers' visibility on and off to see which ones you like.

You may decide you like an adjustable mix of both. Still, don't take this as advice to stack up as many adjustment layers as you please. Whatever you gain on any point on the curve, costs you elsewhere. The more adjustment layers you add, the more you loose, despite what ever gains you find at the same time.

Finally, and personally, I'm glad to be back on this forum. A few months ago I got a mild, easy to treat cancer, but cancer nevertheless, Then, shortly after, cracked a couple of ribs moving packages which should have been delivered to our company's mail room, not to me. Nothing's been terrible, but enough energy-draining that I had no effort to devote to this forum.

Glad to be back.

Reply to exposure and contrast?

nobody@flickr.com (P^2 - Paul) — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 06:38:24 -0700

P^2 - Paul posted a reply:

Inconvenient and impolite though it is to be sent elsewhere to fetch photos, in this case it does make it simpler to snag the photos for analysis.

...which shows the two images show exactly the same ratios of intensities in the dark areas, which is to be expected from a linear digital sensor. The eyes in both image show a 2:1 contrast ratio. In absolute terms, the brighter one has larger range of brightness values = higher absolute contrast, but the same relative contrast. Absent other psychovisual effects, it's the relative contrast that counts. If you are seeing lower contrast (not the same or greater) in the brighter image, then I suggest you check your monitor or reevaluate your definition of "contrast."

As for the text in the book: This concept was absolutely true in film, where the "sensor" (film emulsion) has a non-linear response characterized by the H-D curve. Manipulating exposure to put the tones of interest in the mid-range of the curve yielded more contrast than at the extremes. Manipulating exposure to effect desired contrast this way was Ansel Adams' famous gig.

On modern digital sensors, we sadly lose much of the resilience to over- and under-exposure, and the native contrast character of film. It's a good trade though, as with a linear sensor we can re-create whatever H-D curve we want, digitally (within the hard limits of the sensor). So go play with curves in photoshop and get whatever contrast you desire there.

Reply to exposure and contrast?

nobody@flickr.com (Terry Moore) — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 04:06:48 -0700

Terry Moore posted a reply:

micanki--if you want a quicker response and more people helping you you should post the photos with your question. Providing off-site links will make many people hesitate to look at them. If you have questions on how to do this DM and of the Admins of the group.