Help with sunglasses shot

Heartless

Heartless

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Hello,

I am trying to achieve a certain effect with an image but i am having trouble. Basically i am trying to get a picture of myself with my sunglasses on, but i do not want there to be any reflection in the glasses as i want to edit the image in photoshop and add my own picture to my sunglasses lens. Every picture i have taken i get either a reflection in the glasses or the image is to dark. What is the best way to take this shot, how should i set up the lighting?

I would give examples of what i mean/what i have so far but i don't want to get banned. This is my first post and its saying i need 3 posts before i can post a link.

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
It's just about angles.
Your starting point needs to be a large softbox, directly in front of the glasses (in front of where your face is pointing) and high.
Look down, so that the inevitable reflections bounce off at an angle that isn't seen by the camera lens. job done.
The principle here is that light reflects at exactly the same angle as it strikes (angle of reflectance = angle of incidence)

Of course, the principle will work if you want to be looking up too - just alter the angle of incidence to suit.
 
Ahh, you didn't say that it's an outdoor shot - it doesn't matter, in the sense that the principle is identical, it's just that you can't alter the angle of the light and are limited to altering the angle of the face.

The last link is pretty well what you should be looking for. If you want "more light on the face" then all you need to do is to increase the exposure a bit, what matters is that the angle is OK in terms of reflections.
 
Heartless said:
i want to edit the image in photoshop and add my own picture to my sunglasses lens
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If you are going to edit the image and put a different image on the glass lens why does it matter if there are reflections? You will cover them up with what you add.

If I've missed something then my apologies.
 
As Garry says, light bounces off a surface at the same angle it strikes.

Think of it like a snooker ball (the light) off the cushion (your glasses). If you angle your head so the ball would bounce towards the camera, you'll get a reflection - if you don't, you won't. The only caveat is that the glasses probably have a curved surface which means the light will reflect off a wider range of angles.

Just seen your examples. The problem there is you need to control both the angle of the light, and also the background reflection. If you can't move the mountains, the trick is to position a large black card to the right of frame and out of shot, so that becomes the reflected area that the camera sees. May need a big card, carefully positioned.
 
As said above, why does it matter what is reflected in the glasses if you plan to replace the reflection with a different one anyway? I'm confused. Or did I get it wrong?
 
Nionyn said:
I was wondering exactly the same thing. {shrug...}
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This!

I have just done a shoot with a dance group and a Men In Black theme, wish I had read this thread before I did it......lol
 
Heartless said:
Exposure, is that something i can alter with the camera?
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Depends on how you light your shot. But if you work with a flash, all you have to do is dial up its power setting. If this is continuous light-source, increase your shutter speed. Or in both cases you could increase your ISO or open up your aperture.
 
notwithstanding the above, to make this convincing I'd suggest it'll look better if the lighting is consistent across all the images shot for the composite.

I'd shoot it aiming for the reflection to be the primary subject.
 
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