How To Photograph This Ball

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I work for a kids toy company and because I do photography (wildlife) I'm also the one who does our product photography. We bought some equipment from Lencarta a few years ago so what I have are two lights like this, one with softbox and one with umbrella: http://www.lencarta.com/image/cache/data/Front page/superfast mid button-274x186.png

They normally work fine for what I take, but now we have an inflatable ball and I can't for the life of me work out how to take it without annoying light refelctions in the logo. Here's what I have so far:

_DSC0176 by Chris Cotton, on Flickr

As you can see, the ball is really reflective and the lights cover the logo. The other problem is that the ball has embossed logos on it which seem to need light in order to show up (you can see them on the left with the softbox but not on the right). I'm just wondering if there are any tips or ideas on how I'd light it without the light reflections whilst maintaining the Wicked emboss logos. Just to point out we do have an old light tent but the ball is 80cm diameter so won't fit. If we need to buy something new, that's a possiblity so do tell me if that's the case. Thanks for any help!
 
You could try taking several shots while moving the lighting around. The softbox reflection won't be in that part of the ball for every shot.

Merge the takes into layers and mask out the parts you don't like. Should be left with a clean shot then.

Ironically, I quite like that lens flare look on the left! :)
 
Silks aren't the answer but there is no complete, single answer so it's probably the best answer there is...
You can't get rid of the specular reflections unless you also get rid of the specular source (the lights) which isn't really an option so, as explained in the tutorial that Phil linked to, you need to use the largest available light source, as close as possible, to make the specular reflections both as large as possible and as diffused as possible - at which point they can either be left as they are or reduced/removed in PP.

The problem becomes much worse with convex subjects, and you'll never find a softbox big enough, so we come back to silks, which can be much bigger.
The horrible reflection in the logo is due to having the light in the worst possible place and, from looking at the shot, I think that that's a light too many anyway.

Another option, although for most product shots it's a swearword, is a light tent.
 
Graham W said:
How big is the ball? Golf ball or Spacehopper? May have a bearing on the efficiency of a soft box.
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From the specular reflections, I'd guess around 18" - how far out am I Chris?
 
huffy said:
In the 1st post Chris states the ball is 80cm diameter
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Ahh, didn't notice that, 80cm is about 31" in old money so either I've got it wrong or his lights are much further away than they need to be
 
31" reflective ball???

Your best bet is to surround the front 180* with a silk (or several w/o gap) and light those with your current modifiers. The lighting can be placed/angled to create gradients. Make as small of an opening as possible for the lens; I would be inclined to create a large dome/cone. Even at that the lens will show, but combining images using a shift lens could work if you're not too close (you actually shift the camera body).

The other option is to make the room as dark/uniform as possible and have all of the lighting coming from the sides/rear... that will "hide" the camera/lens/room in shadow, but the front of the ball will be "dark."
 
Garry Edwards said:
Ahh, didn't notice that, 80cm is about 31" in old money so either I've got it wrong or his lights are much further away than they need to be
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They seem smaller/farther because the ball is ~ 2x larger than you initially thought....
But having no clue as to the size of modifiers used I don't know how you guessed in the first place...
 
sk66 said:
They seem smaller/farther because the ball is ~ 2x larger than you initially thought....
But having no clue as to the size of modifiers used I don't know how you guessed in the first place...
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He knows the size of the modifiers, they're the starter kit he sells ;)
 
sk66 said:
They seem smaller/farther because the ball is ~ 2x larger than you initially thought....
But having no clue as to the size of modifiers used I don't know how you guessed in the first place...
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It was just a guess, but I've done a lot of guessing for a lot of years
Phil V said:
He knows the size of the modifiers, they're the starter kit he sells ;)
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You guessed wrong, these are not the droids you're looking for softboxes supplied in our starter kit, I guessed based on the strength of the specular reflections, assuming them to be at the distance at which I would have put them:)
 
Actually Gary, you did advise and supply me with all the lighting equipment I have! Maybe about 4 years ago though. The soft box is...off the top of my head, 60cm x 60cm and about a foot away from the surface of the ball.

Some stuff I need to read into more thoroughly so thanks for everything so far. I'll have a look next week when I'm back at work.
 
When I photographed motorcycle helmets I was using 6ft scrims lit w/ 3ft boxes, the scrims were w/in about 2ft. I also used a 4ft para from behind/close.
And motorcycle helmets are smaller than that ball....
 
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I'd use one light to light this. The soft box on the right, I'd pull it round the side of the ball a tiny bit further so the highlight didn't interfere with the letter 'A' at all. The highlight itself doesn't bother me, it helps show the shape IMO. Get rid of the other light and put a large white board at the left hand side. This will act as a fill without highlights. It should help show the Wicked logos too. But I'd get something on screen with that set up then tweak from there. Photographing round shiny things is generally always a compromise in my experience. Hope this helps. :-)
 
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