The Trick On Getting Gradient Reflection On Reflective Surfaces (Cellphones, Laptops Etc.)
Jun 4, 2014
Laya Gerlock
Laya Gerlock is a Portrait and Product photographer based in the Philippines. His passion is teaching and sharing his knowledge in Photograpy and has been doing this for 6 years.
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Getting gradual reflection on a shiny surface is not trivial. It is not hard, but you have to know how it is done (which you will once you’ve read this post :). This is one of my favorite techniques when shooting products with a granite tile, and it gets that gradient reflection on a reflective surface every time.
I got a couple of messages on Flickr a while back asking me how to get a gradient effect on an iphone shot I did before. So here is a step by step lighting tutorial on how to achieve this kind of lighting and where you can use it.
1. The first thing you need to know when you are working with a reflective surface is that it acts like a mirror. This means that the actual reflection is not just set by what you shoot, but it also depends on the camera position.
You could actually place a small mirror on the surface of the subject just for checking out the what the actual reflection is.
2. Here is the trick: the location of the reflection hint you on where to position your lights. You want your light to be reflected. More specifically, you want the entire reflection to be covered with a large light source.
3. Here is the effect of placing a softbox on where your reflection is.
4. And here is the final touch, this is the effect you get by placing a gradient light source on the reflection
5. There are a couple of ways to get a gradient reflection on the surface.
Normally for my granite tile shots, I use a white seamless paper as the reflected surface and place a bare flash towards it. So it is reflecting a light on where your mirror is pointed.
Bouncing a speedlight on a piece of paper to get a gradient reflection on the screen.
I wiped the granite tile with water to get a little bit of pattern in the tile and also used a CTO gel pointed on a seamless white paper to get this effect.
Again the difference on using a direct light and a reflected light on the surface.
Another example of using a gradient reflection
So there you have it, next time you are dealing with a reflective surface product shot, feature out where its reflection is and place your lights there.
Laya Gerlock
Laya Gerlock is a Portrait and Product photographer based in the Philippines. His passion is teaching and sharing his knowledge in Photograpy and has been doing this for 6 years.
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12 responses to “The Trick On Getting Gradient Reflection On Reflective Surfaces (Cellphones, Laptops Etc.)”
Great one Laya ;)
Simple, and quite helpful. Thanks.
Jose Castillo
can you substitute black plexiglass for granite with suitable results?
Black acrylic (aka Lexan, aka Plexiglass) is actually what most product shooters will have in their studio. Either black or white acrylic sheet; so yes, it will work just fine. ;) The benefit of black acrylic over using a granite tile is that if you want you can light it from underneath.
Thank you, very nice and clear article.
Nice pictures. Shame you lack the ability to properly explain clearly and step-by-step how to actually re-create it. Article is a load of Bollox and DIYP should be ashamed to public so low quality.
it’s a step by step article. it can’t get any clearer than that. Have you even tried doing it? :)
Having gradient reflection during taking a shot is not an easy task but the point is it can help in getting rid of post processing task. I have seen someone is criticizing about the steps but I can understand the fact that one cant be enough to teach the whole process!
i have comment about you ‘YOUR PICTURES ARE SIMPLY BEAUTIFUL’
Getting gradual reflection on shiny surface is tough, I tried many times with my shots to bring out the gradient effect but failed. The way you showed it with the mirror and the paper is quite interesting. I do agree that you show it step by step, the process was a bit clumsy. But still a lot of information’s.
DIYPhotography’s tutorial on “The Trick on Getting Gradient Reflection on Reflective Surfaces” shows how a reflective surface can act like a mirror, and how the right positioning of lights—especially bouncing off a translucent scrim or white panel—creates a smooth glowing gradient reflection.
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