Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Family of Angles


For today's post we will cover a topic that isn't discussed a lot, but is fundamental to lighting. The term “family of angles” doesn't come up often, if at all in most circles. Is it useful for you? Read on to find out...


Terms Defined
Before going any farther, I want to define some of the terms that are related to this discussion, just to ensure everyone gets this bit of background. These are my definitions, feel free to consult the Wikipedia or your favorite source for better terms.

Direct Reflection Reflections that mirror the light source, as one typically gets from a hard, smooth surface, such as glass, plexiglass, metal, plastic, etc., materials that are shiny. Direct reflection does not diffuse the light in any significant manner.

Diffuse Reflection Reflection that gets diffused, that is, scattered all directions rather than simply mirroring the source. Diffuse reflection is typically associated with textured surfaces like cloth, skin, dirt, uncoated paper, etc., materials that are not shiny.

Angle of View Abbreviated as AOV. The angle extending out from a lens along the path of what the camera can see. It is worth noting that while focal length affects the field of view, the sensor size also affects Angle of view. For example, a 100mm lens with a 35mm sensor will yield a wider AOV than the same lens with a 23mm (APS) sized sensor. See the image below for a graphical depiction of this.


Field of View Abbreviated as FOV. The rectangular area describing what the camera can see at a particular focus point. This is similar to AOV except it describes the rectangular area at the focal point, so the FOV increases/decreases correspondingly with an increase/decrease of the focal point. Because FOV is associated with AOV, it too is affected by sensor size

The Basic Premise
The term “family of angles” refers to the angles from which if light is sourced, a reflective surface will direct light back into the lens creating visible light spots. For a flat surface, the family of angles are the same as the lens' angle of view, but coming back toward the camera. Throughout this discussion it is assumed that the surface being photographed is flat and reflective, which could be glass, plexiglass, metal, plastic, etc.

In the above diagram the dotted line represents the family of angles and is equal to the angle from the lens' field of view. When light is sourced anywhere within this family of angles, it will reflect off of the surface being photographed and back into the lens.

From this diagram you can see that using a longer focal length from a greater distance will reduce the family of angles. Now that the lights are outside the family of angles light will not reflect back into the lens, thus eliminating direct reflections.

What's The Point?
The point is, knowing about the family of angles takes some of the guess work out of lighting. It is actually an intuitive kind of thing, but giving it a name makes it easier to discuss and for me, modeling it on paper drives it deeper into the gray matter.

Knowing about the family of angles helps me to control reflections.

I can add them when they're wanted...

...and eliminate them when they're not.

When shooting materials that are somewhat reflective, and especially for those that are highly reflective, if I'm getting unwanted reflections, I know to either move the lights outside the family of angles or use a longer focal length and move the camera back. There are times I may want reflections, like filling a pair of sun glasses or the entire side of a metal object. To do this, I know to place a light source inside the family of angles.

By now someone has no doubt noted that not all objects are faced perpendicular to the camera and not all objects are flat. When the subject is turned, then the family of angles move accordingly along with the subject. This concept can also be applied for non-flat surfaces; you need to adjust for whatever curvature you encounter. A concave surface will reduce the family of angles whereas a convex surface will increase the family of angles. If photographing a sphere you are out of luck, as all angles reflect back into the lens, so the family of angles are 180ΒΊ. There are ways of dealing with it, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this little post.

Read This!Publish Post
I have only scratched the surface for how the family of angles plays into photographing various materials. If you care about lighting, please do yourself a favor and get a copy of the book “
Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lightingby Fil Hunter and Paul Fuqua. It covers this subject and much more, in-depth and in a way that makes it interesting and easy. Google books has an excerpt here.

Coming Next
The next post covers a little product photography from a recent shoot. Come on back and I'll show how I approached lighting a larger than tabletop object.

Until then...

-Gene

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Pushing Flash Sync Speed


Pushing the Sync Speed?
Those from the B&W film era will remember push processing film. In digital we used to push the ISO in the days when cameras topped out at ISO 800 or lower. Today I want to demonstrate pushing the camera's flash sync speed. The result is a bit different from pushing ISO, as it is not uniform across the frame (okay, it isn't a perfect analogy). However, the effect is quite distinctive and can be put to good use.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Lighting Outside with Flash


Off Camera Flash Outside
Today we will take a look at using off camera flash to supplement natural light. I know that someone will wonder, why would I want to do that? After all, isn't natural light the best light? In my opinion, the best light is the light that looks best. Sometimes a reflector will work wonders for an all natural light sitting, but things are not always such that one can make use of reflectors. This is especially true when shooting candids and even more so when there is nobody to assist.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Tabletop Photography – Half Round Hair Accessory

A Last Look at Tabletop Photography
More tabletop coming at you again today and it is the last installment for this tabletop series. This time we are dealing with quite a different lighting problem from what we've seen in these last few examples. The crystal pieces needed a bit of on axis light to create direct reflection for more pop. Today we have a piece for which we want to mostly eliminate direct reflection. The problem is, it is half round, so there is nowhere the light can be placed that will not cause some direct reflection. What to do about this? Read on and I'll show you how I approached the problem...

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Tabletop Photography – Oval and Rectangular Crystal Hair Accessories


Even More Fun with Tabletop Photography

Doing tabletop again today. I have two subjects to show this time and they are similar to what we saw in the last post. After this we move on to a different tabletop subject.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Tabletop Photography – Butterfly Crystal Hair Accessory

More Fun with Tabletop Photography
Today we dive into tabletop again. Though the subject is not the most exciting, each type of item presents its own challenges that are worth documenting for discussion. Some items can be downright difficult, but I thought that we would start with something relatively straight forward, so let's get going.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Reader Comments Are Enabled Again!

It has just come to my attention that reader comments have been disabled for all postings since the end of June. That is when I started using Blogger's new editor, which has better behavior and more posting options. Unfortunately, one of the new posting options is to allow/don't allow user comments, and for some strange reason it defaults to "Don't Allow" reader comments instead of using the global setting for reader comments, which I have set to enabled. I apologize for this. It is an oversight on my part.

Your comments are welcome and encouraged! I have gone through all of the postings and enabled reader comments back to where this started happening, so if you had intended to comment on any of the postings over the last couple of months, please feel free to go back and add your comment now!

I have an interesting little post coming up next Tuesday, so don't venture too far.

Until then...

Gene