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Lighting an actor with glasses?

M

Mannie Bothans

I hope you'll indulge another stupid newbie question.

Tonight I set up a 3-point light system in a tiny room. The subject wore glasses and reflected both the key and the fill lights at different times during the shoot.

I googled the problem (and tried to do a search here) but didn't find very helpful info. One still photography site said to shoot in 3/4 profile, and another site said to use flat lens prop glasses coated an AR coating. I can't imagine how hard it would be to try to control lighting and filming angles to avoid reflections for an entire feature, but I suppose it's been done if that is the only way.
 
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That's great to know. I'll test that next. Thanks.

This was a tiny room and at one point I was testing almost 1500 watts from CFLs. Maybe nothing would have stopped the glare from these huge softboxes.
 
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It's all about light positioning. If you position your lights and your camera so that you get reflection, you'll get reflection.
Rather than a standard 3-point setup, you might have your key right off to the side, then fill from below to get under the glasses and dig into the eyes and then add a kicker on the top of the hair, for example.
Soft lighting can help, and bounce cards can help but it depends on your room, camera position, mood/feeling you want to evoke etc. etc.
 
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Thanks. I want to spend a day trying lots and lots of different angles, distances, etc. I will try these angles first.

I wish I had a monitor to use, but for now I'm happy to have what I have.
 
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It's a pain, I've seen some folks tip the glasses down slightly, or light from higher (same effect)... there should be some chance of controlling the reflections with a polarizer (not entirely, but a little).
 
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