Reflections from glass table top?

[Todd Terry]

Glass will, yes, obviously reflect.

Whether or not that poses problems will depend on the exact positions and angles of both your lighting instruments and your camera.

If you’re set on glass, you could try building it with non-glare or more heavily frosted glass, with the “rough” side of the glass facing out.

Or hit it with photographic dulling spray (temporary, wipe off), or Krylon Matte Finish 1311 spray (more permanent) to kill reflections. Do-it-yourself spray dulling though is very difficult to do with absolutely perfectly even results over large areas.

Or you could use Plexiglass instead of real glass, and gradually dull it with steel wool until you get to a level that adequately eliminates reflections.

Obviously, any of those solutions is going to affect the transparency of the glass, to different degrees.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Dennis Size]

Using glass on a set will always cause problems.
Having done many of the major TV Network glass enclosed studios, I’ve learned to pay strict attention to the rule: “the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection”.

If you pay very close attention to where your cameras are position in relation to where you position your lights then you will be fine ….. and everyone will wonder, “how’d he do that?”. 🙂

DS

[Stan Welks]

It doesn’t have to be real glass, though I do want it to be transparent. Here are some examples of the kind of what I am trying to do https://www.newscaststudio.com/blog/2009/10/16/new-ktla-set-combines-contemporary-traditional-looks/

It is going to be a very simple setup, with one camera shooting straight on, and Kinos lighting the front. I was going to use a back light for the person on set though. Not sure if that will be a problem?

thanks guys for your advice.

[Dennis Size]

Again, it will not be a problem at all …. as long as you don’t put your backlight at the angle of incidence to the camera (which I doubt you’d be doing anyway as you’d be shooting down on your anchor too much).
Don’t obsess over it. You’ll be fine. Worst case, you’ll end up moving the backlight a bit.

I just finished lighting DICK CLARK’s ROCKIN NEW YEAR’s EVE last week. During the interior studio scenes Dick — along with Ryan Seacrest — sat/stood behind a 5′ x 7′ glass topped table. I had several camera positions (including a moving jib) and we never saw any reflections from the 20 or so lights hanging over them.

DS

[Steve Kownacki]

What about a polarizing filter on the camera to control the amount of reflection?

Steve