What is the secret to taking a picture reflected in a mirror?

-- jack swallow (birdmanx@hotmail.com), August 02, 1999

Answers

Secret? No secret, just a bunch of unsubstantiated myths by too many armchair Newtonians. Whatever light problems you are going to have, you will see in the lens (i.e., 45 degree +- a few degrees). I do self-portraits and portraits ALL THE TIME with my lens pointed right into a mirror. Just grab your camera and do it. Available light works best, definitely.

-- shawn gibson (shawn.gibson@utoronto.ca), August 03, 1999.

Wait a second. If you have on-camera flash, and can't turn it off, that might cause you some really ugly problems. Otherwise you'll be fine.

-- shawn gibson (shawn.gibson@utoronto.ca), August 03, 1999.

What kind of secret do you mean? Offhand, I can only think of two problems.

#1: When using a viewfinder camera and shooting a plane mirror, remember that the distance to your subject is the distance from camera to subject via the mirror, not from camera to mirror.

#2: With the camera "looking" at the mirror at right angles, you will have an image of the camera in the mirror. If you don't want that, or with a flash, that will be a problem. The solution, namely looking at the mirror from the side, usually brings a different problem if the frame of the mirror is to be part of your image: The frame of the mirror is not a rectangle any more. You can correct this in two ways:

a) When taking the photo, keep the planes of the film and the mirror parallel, i.e. use a PC (or shift) lens.

b) Don't make the angle too big and correct the converging lines in the print by using the Scheimpflug principle. There may be some distortion, but it is often acceptable.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), August 04, 1999.