Trouble photographing metallic objects

Kev M

Kev M

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Morning all.

I've recently found myself being asked to photograph broken aircraft parts at work and I'm struggling to light them effectivelfy. It doesn't need to be anything fancy but it needs to show the detail. On camera flash is a no-no because it just bounces straight back into the lens as most of what I'm photographing is metallic.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can avoid reflections by positiong or diffusing or any other way?

The other problem is showing the scale of damage. The obvious answer is to put a ruler next to it but we only have cheap plastic ones or steel rulers which only have very faint markings and just like the subject become hard to make out when I've used flash. Any ideas?

I reckon Arkady might have done some of this rubbish when training at the Big C but I wondered if anyone else did something simlar in their work?

Cheers,
Kev
 
Morning Kev

I've done a bit of this, I made myself a big lightbox/tent covered with white fabric (I used two big bed sheets which) worked well. I stood two slave flash units behind the object INSIDE the box/tent pointing up into the corners and fired them using the onboard flash with a bit of card in front of it to prevent unwanted reflections. It's a bit Heath Robinson but it worked. It depends how big your aircraft parts are I suppose.
 
Was going to suggest a lighting tent as well. Pretty cheap on eBay.

I take it you have tried firing the flash through a diffusing material (brolly) or off white card/refector?
 
As to scale I've found a stanley yellow pull out tape measure has quite large text and shows up well in pictures. My pictures were only for old work stock sold on ebay though :)
 
for scale you could get a bit of 1x1 wood and paint inch long sections alternating white and red
 
Really?
 
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