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I've had to preserve whiteboard scribbles a few times. The problem is that you usually can't control the lighting and it's rarely good. The technique I've converged on is to take two pictures. With the camera on a tripod, take the first picture of the board as is. Then erase the board and take the second picture with exactly the same settings.
Now ...
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In a reflective surface, the reflections are of the surrounding area.
1. The bigger the object the bigger space you need
So, in your case, you need a really big space clean, let's say painted on white, like a photo studio.
Look how humungous and clean a photo studio can be. I think you need about the space to fit two or three cars.
A 90° corner could ...
33
Considering the relatively long exposure time, I would say this is an airliner flying over. You can see how the lights flash on alternate wings. The central line is likely some other, steady light on the undercarriage.
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The answer will be easy to figure out if you understand a little bit what polarization means.
I don't have a polarizing filter to play with, but I do have a physics degree, so here it goes:
Light reflected by certain types of surfaces (such as glass or water, but not metal) is partially linearly polarized. Light reflected under a certain angle is fully ...
22
When light bounces off a relatively nonconductive surface it becomes partially plane polarized, meaning the light tends to have the same polarization direction.
Polarizing filters can be used to counteract glare/reflections, by orienting the filter at 90 degrees to the polarized reflection so that it get filtered out.
If you orient the filter so that it is ...
22
Much sparkling is due to stereo vision, which is also why the glistening of metal is hard to capture in photographs that are not stereo pairs. Diamonds reflect and refract light glint differently to each eye as well, enhancing this effect. This is one of the little-known benefits of stereo photography: stereo slides of sparkly snow and metals are amazing in ...
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I am limited on this answer because I live in a warmer climate.
The sparkles are given by an exact reflection. You see a lot of sparkles because you move a little, so you receive a reflection of different flakes each mm you move your head, and also you see twice the sparkles because your eyes are separated and each one receive some.
The bad news is that ...
17
This is lens flare, where reflections within the lens end up showing on your photos.
General guidance to minimise it includes:
Avoid getting the sun in shot (and ideally, avoid having it just-out-of-frame too)
Use a lens hood to shade the front element
Try to use lenses that have anti-reflective coatings
Keep the front element clean, but follow the lens ...
16
Use a telephoto lens, positioning you and camera several feet/meters away. Your reflection will be much smaller.
Can also use a mirror, which will effectively do same thing: position mirror on one side, then you and camera on other to reduce your reflection. Again, a telephoto lens and distance are your friends.
Based on the comments, I will explain the ...
16
Two basic techniques for dealing with reflections on glass should be known, albeit they will only reduce, not totally eliminate them - so for formal product photography, the advice about using an all white or black, uncluttered shooting environment still apply.
One is using polarizing filters. In the simplest form, you use one on your camera lens - for more ...
15
Put a white sheet between you and the trophy - some distance from the trophy, but basically "all around". Cut a rectangular hole in it that is about the size of the trophy. Use a long lens, and shoot the trophy through the hole. Now most of what is reflected will be "white sheet", with just a small hole in the middle where you were standing. If you further ...
12
You are focusing on objects, which are reflected. So you are not focusing on reflected surface. You are interested in light rays, which go from object "through reflection" to your camera. Not only from reflective surface to camera.
You can try to shot for example puddle - try to focus on ground and you will se that reflection is blurred. Then try to focus ...
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Unless the photos you're thinking of were retouched, whatever you see reflected in the ornaments is the photographer's setup. The trick is to make that look like something other than a photography studio. That means two things: 1) provide the environment that you want reflected, and 2) hide or camouflage the things (like the camera) that you don't want to ...
11
Any Other advice on increasing the reflection over water surfaces.
Specular reflections like you get from water are stronger the lower the angle of incidence. This means when the light is coming almost parallel to the surface and striking a glancing blow.
This is easy to achieve under controlled lighting. In natural light this means waiting until the sun ...
11
Just to add to Stan Rogers' answer, here is a non processed example of such a blur happening on the reflected image after a 15s exposure.
While the surface objects are reasonably sharp, the reflections are clearly not. Also note the effect on the clouds, which were moving quite fast that night.
As Stan mentioned, those artifacts aren't necessarily bad per ...
11
What you are seeing in the photo is a specific type of lens flare known as ghosting. It is an inverted and reversed reflection of the brightest highlights of the scene. If you were to draw an x and y axis intersecting in the center of the photo, all of the artifacts in the photo have corresponding bright light sources at the same distance from center and at ...
11
It is simple geometry and does not involve any editing. You may see upon closer inspection that Mike is taller than the woman sitting aside and she also sits somewhat behind. Photographer stands exactly in the position from which the woman is not visible at all.
On the scheme below
the red shape is the table
the green is the mirror
the blue shapes denote ...
10
I regularly take photos of whiteboards sized 3' x 4' or larger with my cell phone camera to record meeting notes, and it produces passable results. The D90 should absolutely kick butt on this.
The two factors you want to avoid are glare and motion blur. As Guffa mentioned, you want to avoid glare from ambient (room) lighting, so get into a position as ...
10
There are several problems with some of the answers you have already received. First, little of this effect is due to polarized reflections from the car itself. The reflection needs to be at a more glancing angle to get significant polarizing selection. Most of the reflections in this image are steep enough to not make much difference to the polarization ...
10
You WILL have reflections - the question is: what would you like to see there? Seriously. Because 1. You will have to put that there or 2. Do that in post-processing. Both is painful, #2 is a bit less money-wasting, but more time-wasting. :-)
You could use a polarizer to remove reflections, if that helps. Makes the object look dull though...
Also, you can ...
10
I'm thinking in several options:
Put a timer on the camera, and "duck and hide"
Use a remote trigger, and just hide.
Point the lights away from you and the camera. You most likely are using diffused light. If you are using a softbox you can use a grid so you don't spill the light on you or the camera.
If you are using an umbrella you can position 1 or 2 ...
10
Take video instead.
A sparkling effect is inherently time-dependent, with tiny points of light appearing and disappearing with even the tiniest bit of motion. A few seconds of video would convey that better than a single fixed image. The same is true for stars, which just don't twinkle in a static image.
Maximize depth of field.
There are a lot of little ...
10
I use for reference the first half page of hits when I search "product photographs industrial refrigerator"…
You'll notice the very first thing you are going to need is a white room, or if budget is limited then some kind of framework from which you can hang white sheets or paper roll, completely surrounding the product.
Once you have that, you are then in ...
9
I had a similar problem to shoot fish in an aquarium. The trick I discovered is to get one of those inexpensive flexible rubber lens hoods. Attach it to your lens, and then 'smush' your camera and lens right up against the glass, ensuring the rubber lens hood is flush against the glass.
This then cuts out all reflected light.
This was taken through glass ...
9
20 months on - I don't see anyone mentioning a method that helps me in extreme cases. You do have to be more than averagely committed (or obsessed) or to come more than averagely prepared.
Use of a dark "hood" over head and camera so you are sealed in your own dark space on your side of the glass will almost completely eliminate the reflections which are ...
9
Lighting for glasses is all about angles. The rule is: angle of incidence equals angle of reflection. Typically, the light would be either above or below the subject so that the reflections off the glasses would angle in the desired direction which is away from the lens, like so:
This is a two light shot and, while I still need to work on filling in some ...
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"Good lighting" for outside pictures is pretty much dusk or dawn. If you're getting a harsh reflection of the sun at this point, you should be able to easily rotate a bit and get the sun out of your frame. In fact, some of the best light is just before the sun rises and just after it sets. There's still plenty of light to shoot with - especially for ...
8
I think the main problem is your packaging, as Stan mentions in his comment. The packaging is wrinkled such that, no matter where you place your lights, you are going to have some surfaces reflecting onto the camera. If you try to move your lights closer, to make the light softer, you'll have light bouncing off those things at literally every possible ...
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