Photographing Reflective Surfaces

[Tyrannosaur]

Wondering if anyone can help.

I've been asked to photograph some plaques which are a bronze colour, but am struggling with reflections and bright spots. Because they are flat everything just bounces back off them. I have tried to minimise it as much as I can and built a kind of light box from card but I haven't yet achieved that best shot.

I'm using a DSLR, a tripod and have a few different length lenses I can use along with flash and one bright studio style light.

So I'm open to advice from you guys, anything I should try?

Thanks for reading.

[Spreadie]

I'm not expert (far from it), but would a light tent, no flash and slow shutter/longer exposure do the trick?

[kalniel]

Circ. polariser may help.

[Bobster]

circular polariser for sure, or use a larger light source

[Tyrannosaur]

Just to let you know they wanted their plaques back so I didn't really have time to experiment with things. So in the end I cheated and angled them slightly upwards so the camera wasn't reflected and had a plain background behind. Then cheated by using GIMP to alter the perspective so it looked straight on.

Thanks for the advice.

[oldboy47]

I used to photograph a lot of very reflective surfaces and to kill reflections etc. I positioned the camera directly over the material being photographed. In the same line of the camera lens I positioned a flashgun each side angled to 45degs to the photo subject. One flashgun was directly attached to the camera contacts, the other had a slave trigger. Each flash will cancel shadows and reflections caused by the other source.
Sometimes I would use two tungsten lights instead but that will give the image a colour cast as well as making the subject matter quite warm.

[Tyrannosaur]

Thanks oldboy47. Did you use some kind of diffuser on the flashguns/lights to make a more even spread of the light?

[oldboy47]

Yes, I used a sheet or two of white lint. The advantage of digital photography is that you can play with the exposure. Note I would set everything to manual - ISO, aperture and shutter speed - that way you would have a constant set of values when you have the similar subjects (I photographed coins, jewellery, medals as well as photographs and other artistic matter).

[Tyrannosaur]

Thanks again oldboy47.

I will try this sometime. I like figuring out the different techniques so if I need them at some point I have some knowledge as a starting point.