How do I photograph water without catching glare from sun?

Question

For fun, I have been trying to photograph a small, fast-moving creek near my house, and I cannot figure out how to take a picture of the creek in good lighting without it reflecting the sun and causing glare. All of the water droplets are flying around and causing a ton of problems like chromatic aberration and reflections. How do I eliminate this stuff?

Asked by J. Walker

Answer

"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 landscapes - and you'll not have to worry about these reflections and glare.

Overall, I suspect you're just shooting too much in the middle of the day.

For any lighting questions, especially those revolving around the angles and glare and such - Light: Science and Magic is a great, great resource.

Answered by rfusca

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How does a glare arise in images?

Question

I know am sounding dumb but i have not been able to find a correct definition of glare

What are the reasons it props up into images For example am taking a photograph of a fruit in diffuse light :

What is this glare due to and how do i avoid it?

Asked by vini

Answer

Glare as you put it is more formally known as a specular reflection. This occurs when you have smooth objects where all the light bounces off in the same direction. This contrasts with rough objects which due to fragments of the surface pointing in different directions, reflects light in different directions.

Most objects like your apple produce both specular and diffuse reflections. Specular reflected light is often partially polarized in the process so you can reduce it with a polarizing filter. Alternatively you can arrange your lights so that the reflected light doesn't hit the camera.

Answered by Matt Grum

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How to reduce glare from glass during photo editing?

Question

I have taken a picture of a person standing inside the house via a window.

being outside, of course there is glare. I don't mind the glare as an artistic item, but wondered if there is a way to control the level of glare?

I am using paint.net as my main "power" editor, but Picasa picnik also is an option.

Answer

This looks like an image that you can never take again, so the issue is not how to improve a retake, but to rescue what information you can.

If you could return to the scene under identical outdoor lighting conditions, with the same objects in the background, and from the same location re-shoot the window into an empty unlit room, then you could (a) register the glare in the new photo with the glare in the old and (b) subtract it from the original photo. The result would be imperfect but it could reveal some details currently obscured in the center of the photo.

If perhaps you took more than one photo at that time and the subject in the window moved or changed substantially, then you might already have most of this information, because you could again (a) register the glare in one photo to that of the other, (b) compare the two images to identify changes larger than the registration error, and (c) subtract out the areas that did not change.

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What are some effective techniques for photographing subjects who wear glasses?

Question

What are some effective techniques for photographing subjects who wear glasses?

I am sorting out my collection of digital images as I install new software, and find there are many images that would otherwise be really nice, if it weren't for eyes being distorted, or even cut out of view, because of the glasses people wear.

Both my parents wear glasses, and asking them to remove them is not an option when most pictures are candid and shot in the moment.

Is there anything I can do to remedy this problem?

Answer

Posting some examples will help us identify your problem, but if you're getting distortion because they're wearing very thick, corrective glasses - there's not alot you're going to be able to do.

If you're getting odd angles of reflected light, either change the angle of the light by moving the flash or tilting the subject's head.

Obviously you can also move the camera itself. Its about changing that angle that the light is reflecting off the glasses into the lens.

The strobist has an excellent article here: http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/04/lighting-101-lighting-for-glasses.html

Here's an example of changing the head's angle to avoid odd reflections from glasses:

Here's an example of changing the light source (bounced off the ceiling here) angle:

Doing candid shots means this is obviously much harder, you'll have to be distinctly aware of the angle of the light and your subject. It can be done, it just means putting a little more time into the shot when you have it.

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Why does color reflection appear in photographs of sun or fire?

Question

What is the new color that forms in the image when photographing a sun or similar things (see attachment with a rose glare)?

Why and how it forms?

Is it good for a image?

How to increase or decrease it?

Answer

You can get all sorts of interesting shapes and colours when shooting directly into a lightsource like that. All pieces of glass reflect a certain amount of light and transmit a certain amount, so you actually get flare from everything in your scene every time you shoot, only it's usually much dimmer than the rest of the picture so you don't see it.

When you shoot into a lightsource like that, what shows up white (the flame in this case) is actually way way brighter than white, it's just the camera sensor only records up to a certain brightness. So because the object emitting light is very bright, the internal reflections it generates are much brighter and so they show up as flare.

As different colours of light are bent different amounts by the lens optics they are also reflected different amounts so it's not unusual to have strongly coloured flare. Whether it's good or not is up to you, like many things in photography some people will like it and some wont.

You won't eliminate flare when shooting directly into a bright lightsource, but it will change position as you move, also different lenses show different types of flare and to different degrees, so you just have to experiment as it's hard to predict. Filters on the front of the lens can make flare worse as there's an extra glass surface to reflect light.

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How do I photograph coins with a glossy surface?

Question

I am trying to photograph my coin sets. The coins are encased in a postcard-sized glossy paper that acts as mirror.

I need to position my camera exactly on top of the card coin set. Unfortunately, when I do this, my reflection is seen on the glossy paper and also get captured in the image. The reflection vanishes if I move the camera too close to the card, but then I need a lens with a closer focal point.

What is the suggested way to take pictures of a glossy surface, avoiding the reflection on the surface?

Answer

The coin reflects light. With a light shining straight on it, much of it may be reflected straight back at the camera:

The first thing to do is move the light to the side and put a dark object where it used to be. The dark object is now reflected in the coin, but that's not noticeable:

There are still many specular highlights on the relief and lettering, reflections of the light and of other bright objects in the vicinity. Minimize those by surrounding yourself with a flat, black environment. This last photo was taken from above with a black cloth draped over photographer and camera:

(All three images are of the same coin. Some noise reduction was applied, but no contrast enhancement was performed in any of them. The softness in this last image is because there was much less light to illuminate the coin: because these images were handheld, this required a high ISO and large aperture. For good work you will use a tripod, of course, allowing a smaller aperture and low ISO, because a long exposure is no problem.)

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How to avoid glare in macro photography?

Question

I am attempting to take pictures of antique pocket watches, when I use my flash, even with a diffuser or farther away, I get glare from the curved elements within the watch. Are there any sites with tips and tricks to try to avoid this?

Answer

For macro of reflecting things you need a as big as possible lightsource.
Best would be a macro tent, but you can improvise with a few pieces of paper and light sources. Just cut one piece of paper in half, form a ring from the two pieces, put them on some other papers and put light sources outside the paper:

If the stuff is really reflective, put another piece of paper on top and leave just a small opening to take the photo through:

(My own pictures, taken from my own blog entry about macro tents)

[Update] Strobist just posted a nice explanation for a small macro tent, too.

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