Does anyone know the best way to photograph objects such as trophies and armoured helmets etc. How do I get rid of the glare and reflection?

-- Susan Murray (murraysx@dcs.gla.ac.uk), January 24, 1999

Answers

Reflective objects are tough. The only sure fire solution is to put the item inside a white translucent box or tent. Cut a hole for the camera to look through. Project strong lighting through tent walls. Alt is black surroundings with lighting through a translucent lighted panel or from a "soft box". The reflected image of the light source is a large evenly lit rectangle or circle which looks OK to the eye. Look through some magazines pics for examples.

-- Rick Griffen (rgriffen@vabch.com), January 24, 1999.

Rick got it absolutely right. (Must be a pro, sounds like the voice of experience.) By way of further explanation, the reason reflective objects are so tough is that they reflect whatever's around them. (well, duh...) The problem is that whatever's around them is usually either pretty dark (the surrounding room/studio), or very bright (the glaring floodlamps, strobes, whatever). By surrounding them with a light tent, you're giving them a nice big, evenly-illuminated object to reflect, giving nice smooth highlights. It's kind of fun to look at shots in magazines, and try to figure out the lighting setup, based on the distorted reflections you see in the objects.

There are a lot of good books out there on lighting that would doubtless help you as well. I got one for Christmas that I like, called "Lighting Secrets for the Professional Photographer", by Brown, Braun, and Grondin, published by Writer's Digest Books. - I was totally impressed and humbled by the lengths pros go to to make the shots look "just so."

-- Dave Etchells (hotnews@imaging-resource.com), January 24, 1999.