How did I do that? Part 2

Banishing reflections

I work a great deal with reflective surfaces in my job. It could be a highly reflective silver grid on a light or even just the inside surface of a light reflector. Either way, these surfaces produce reflections which detract from the image.

Add to the fact that these surfaces are sometimes concave or convex then the problem gets worse as the curved surface takes in the whole room!

For small surfaces it's relatively simple to place the object in a white light tent. For larger objects it can get problematic and the images may have to be extensively retouched.

I had this problem recently when I was photographing one of a new range of LED lights produced by the company for which I work.

I had done all the catalogue standard shots and wanted to finish with a shot showing the light source itself.

When I looked into the reflector through my viewfinder, I could see myself! The light was just a bit too big to place in a light tent so I came up with another solution.

Here's what I did:

 

Camera is mounted on the FOBA stand. There's also a spirit level in the hot-shoe.

First result: 

That's me reflected in the silver reflector.

A large piece of white card with a lens sized hole in the middle is called for:

I used the self timer function on the camera to give me ten seconds of time to position the board correctly

 

This was the final result.

I make no apologies if you already know of this technique, but I simply like to share my knowledge.

Thanks for reading