On this short 2 minute video by photographer David Bergman (with Adorama) there are a few tips for shooting glass in a studio environment.
shooting reflective objects can be challenging but there are a number of tips that can help you.
The first tip is a way to place the glass so that you won’t get too much reflection from the surface below – what you can do is to put a similar glass upside-down and put the one that you are shooting on top of it. This is a nice trick although it will only work in certain situations where you are shooting only the glass (if the glass itself is just part of the picture this can be much more complex).
Now onto the lighting. When you shooting with a flash – don’t fire the flash directly onto the glass – all that you will get is just reflections (the glass acts like a mirror). What you want is indirect light or light that comes from behind which is exactly what Bergman suggest – lighting the glass from behind (preferably using something soft like a light box).
If you want to add some drama and contrast to the image what you want to use is negative fill (we have a full video discussing the topic of negative fill – here). This is simple – just put some dark non-reflective material around your glass (you can place it out of the frame or remove it in post).
One cool final suggestion – do the opposite – put the dark foam core behind the glass but then you will have to light the glass from a different angle (Bergman didn’t show this in the video but you can play with it and see that you get – there are really an endless amount of options.
That’s it for 2018 – we will open 2019 very soon with a new review so stay tuned.
You can check out many more helpful photography tips on our Photography tips section here on LensVid.