Hi,
I am in a dilema. The company that I work for imports slabs of granite that are shiny and very detailed and dark. They are unloaded in a warehouse, rapidly and in large quantities so there is not really time to set up a large amount of lighting. Also, I can't have the slabs moved to a "staging" area where there is black cloths or lights set up permanently.
But the need for images of these materials is overwhelming and I would not really be the one doing the shooting. I need to devise a way for a person to photograph there quickly, accruately and with a little bit of equipment .
The current camera is a the Canon 20D with the stock 18-55 lens and that will not change. But as far as lighting I can spend some money.

I have tried it with an external flash on the camera and that makes a big bright spot in the slab so no dice. I have tried my external flash with pocket wizards off to the side and that works for the light materials but not the darks.

I am going to try to attach a few pics here.
any suggestions??????

I would create a tent with semi opaque material. Have two lights at 45 shooting through the material and the camera lens pokes through the tent.

Take a look at this link below for a crazy loose idea of how to do this. The panels in this example are parallel. I would have them at a V, where your product is at the mouth of the V and your camera is at the point. This will help reduce reflections and you won't see the BIG white flash, or your photographer in the marble.

http://www.photoflexlightingschool.com/Lig...rait/index.html


Best of luck!
Bill

What Bill said.

I was out shooting my textures and backgrounds and ran into some shiny ones that I had to figure out what to do so I wouldn't be "in" the picture. My quick solution..... Camera on a tripod, timer mode with me holding my reflector behind the camera to kill the reflection, or at least make it 100% tonally the same. I used the diffuse material in the center of my 5 in 1. But the same could be done on a larger scale. A couple of pieces of white nylon from the fabric store to make a couple of large panels and camera in the center and you can shoot away and not worry about it.

1. Get a circular Polarizer. This should help reduce reflections.

2. You could tray adding a backdrop behind you like a black cloth. This would even everything out in the refection and make things look more normal.

3. Changing the lighting angle will help, but in high gloss your still dealing with the other light in the room.

Start with the Polarizer

ummmm shoot from anywhere but straight-on?

A;ot of good advice here i"m curious to hear more.

It should help, but most polarizers won't remove ALL reflections, just most... just FYI if you go out and buy one, buy the best one you can afford. There IS a difference between a single coated $30 filter (which really costs $5 for the camera store, but that's another post... ugh) and a nice, multi-coated Hoya or my fave B+W. B+W is the ONLY filter allowed on my camera. Their multicoated UV is on my 70-200 and it's the only filter, other than a circ polarizer that will ever be seen on my lens. Cheap filters, you might as well smear Vaseline on your lens.http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/9778..._Polarizer.htmlAssuming you are using Canon glass that uses the 77's. But that's the MC (multi-coat) at $144 it ain't cheap.. but damn worth it if you really need it.

sounds like the OP is using the stock 18-55mm EF-S - so might as well have vaseline on it to begin with....

Id have at look at this book: Light: Science and Magic: An introduction to photographic lighting.

IT has lots of information specifically on photographing shiny surfaces - black, white, translucent, etc etc... A great resource for any lighting challenge!

I have it but Im not at home so I can't advise from it.

Jonathan