Light reflections on polished surfaces

[Whisky_Mac]

New to off camera lighting with my two monoblocs. I have just taken some shoots of my club race helmut to put on flea bay. I probably need to keep reading the lighting book I have because I have had trouble with reflections from the light in the shine of the helmet. I ended up not using the silver umbrella on the right, I just bounced the light of the ceiling and used the soft box on the left. As you can see, I still have the reflection of the soft box on the helmet. Left hand light was at about 70 degrees from camera position and about 5 feet (whatever it is in metric) from the subject. What am I doing wrong.

[I @ M]

The first rule of soft boxes ( all rules are meant to be broken of course ) is to have the soft box no further away from the subject than the diagonal measurement of the soft box. So if your soft box measures 3 foot diagonally then start positioning it no more than 3 feet from the subject and move it as close as you possibly can without getting it in the actual picture.

[R1titan]

A CP-L may help reduce some of those reflections....

[Nick_]

A CP-L may help reduce some of those reflections....

+1 for the CPL. You can try finding a white room (walls and ceiling) and get some black card from say, Spotlight for a background & shooting surface (I got some 1.5ftx1.5ft for like $4) and use your lights to bounce the light away from the helmet to create a bigger light source (aka the roof) and that way the light will be softer but still bright and wont give you hotspot(s) on the helmet.

[fillum]

Another option is to use a light tent. Easy enough to build yourself - just google and you should be able to find instructions.

Frankly, I reckon if the shot is for ebay it's ok as is. Probably better than 90% of the photos you see there anyway...

The only strict rule about reflections is to make sure that you are not reflected in the image if you shoot in the nude. (Is this too much information??)


Cheers.
- Phil.