Lighting for Phonograph Album Covers

[James907]

I am trying to shoot some 2000 album covers stored in an old warehouse with floresent lights in the ceiling.

I have a major problem with glare. Someone suggested 2 lights at 45 degree angles.

Can I use two desk lamps with ordinary 100 watt light bulbs or will something more suiitable
need to be used.

Should I attempt to diffuse the light through frosted glass.


I have gotten almost tolerable results by tilting the camera and album forward by 45 degrees and then used a large backdrop for the background

[i speak in math]

Glare is a problem with shiny objects. Read up on lighting specular objects.

The key is to light or not light what they are reflecting, not the object themselves. In this case, since you want to avoid glare, you will want to make sure that the glare is reflecting something black rather than the light. Place a gobo between the cover and the light.

Two lights through umbrella at 45 degrees should avoid reflecting off the covers while providing even fill.

Like this

[Frank Wang]

Consider shooting with the overhead lights off so that you can control 100% of the light that hits the object. If you can't do that, then put your lamps closer to the subject so that your light is primarily what's lighting the subject. Or get more powerful lights.

I'm going to say 100watts aren't enough, but you can always double up on the number of lamps you use. Clamp lights from home depot are handy.

Remember that angle of incidence angle of reflection and since you're dealing with a flat-ish object, you should be able to predict where the glare is going to be.

If you can't figure it out by moving the lights / your camera, another way to do it is to photograph on a tripod and move the lights around between each shot so that a different part of the object is subject to glare. You probably only need two shots. then stack the to images in photoshop and use the best parts.