Glare form paneling! Suggestions?

[David G. Smith]

I was checking out a location I may have to use, shooting into a vintage bar setting in the basement of a house. The wall behind bar is a very textured paneling, with a very shiny surface. I was just testing with soft frontal lighting, but I got a horrible glare reflected off of the paneling, and the main culprit, besides the shiny finish, is the raised texture on it. The bar is in a basement, so lighting angles, side to side, up or down, for broad general lighting are limited. Dulling the paneling doesn't look like an option either. I can light the scene in many different ways to deal with it, but my question is if I really want to shoot a setting like that with broad soft frontal lighting, and am getting paneling glare, would polarizing filters cut the glare? Is there any other way to cut it?

If using polarizers in a situation like that, would I need to use them for all of the shots in that scene, for continuity. Would their effect on the image be noticeable, besides cutting off the glare (and besides any filter factor, which could be dealt with) and inter-cut with shots in the same scene without the polarizers?

 

[tom_wise]

I don't think I'd consider polarizer's. I like how they tint my photos sometimes and make that Blue-sky bluer.

The first thing that comes to my limited experiential mind is reflecting.

You didn't mention if there is overhead lighting?

So I am wondering if you'll be able to use the in-place fixtures to sweeten the lighting pie?

And What happens if you point your lights away from the scene and try and bounce it? That bounced light could even be shaped with different kinds of reflectors.

And of course another thought is can you use that glare you mention to good effect?

 

[Greg Smith]

Polarizers work best at cutting reflections that come from smooth surfaces at a specific and consistent angle -- so they work well with glare off of glass and water, for example. On that shiny but textured wall, the glare consists of a multitude of small reflections from all the little bumps in the surface, and will be pretty much a completely random mix of differently polarized sources. A polarizer over the lens won't be able to do much of anything about that.

I think some kind of dulling spray is your best option, but absent that, you may just have to light so all the sources are at a very oblique angle to the shiny wall surface (e.g. lights washing straight down along the wall, rather than perpendicular to it), so the offending reflections are directed into the floor and away from the lens.

Can you just cover up the shiny paneling temporarily with your own panel or drape of some kind that you would add to the set?

- Greg

 

[Moseph]

This may be obvious, but does this glare occur at all angles? How high is the ceiling? You can't raise the light up and then flag it so that it the light is cut just above the talent's head?

I'd go back and test out a polarizer, I've found that it's somewhat hard to predict whether or not they'll actually work. Since they're most effective when the light is reflecting off of the surface and into the camera at 45 degrees, it sounds like it might not do much since you want to have frontal lighting. It's worth a shot though. Keep in mind that they also will affect how the light reflects off of the talent's face, and that the tint that they give off will vary depending on how you have it rotated.

 

[David G. Smith]

I double checked behind the bar and there is a batten of light sockets that run just above the bar that I think I will test with very low wattage bulbs. The ceiling is like 7 foot tall so lighting from above is not an option. That makes sense about polarizers Greg, yeah, the glare is from many different angles. I think in this situation, i will light the back bar with low wattage bulbs from the batten strip and light the talent with a little side light and some bounce, placed low, 45 degrees toward the talent from the side lighting. If the lights from the batten strip don't look good, I have about 30 feet of rope light that would be perfect for behind the bar. Seeing the glare from the paneling kind of freaked me out at first. It is something I will keep my eye out for in the future, that is for sure.

 

[Matty_g]

Could always tape up some show card on the ceiling and use a source 4 too. That with some low kino fill might help that soft wrapping light but w/o the reflections.

looks real cute with a paper tape skirt too

 

[Ken Hull]

With a polarizer, you run the risk of having the talent's face and clothes look too saturated. But if the talent was lit from a different angle than the background, that might work. Just rotate the polarizing filter to cut the specular reflections on the background. With the talent lit from another angle, the polarizing effect would not be as strong.

(Just be sure to bring some barndoors and flags.)

- Ken

 

[slondon]

Some very good observations and suggestions above, as usual here. I wonder if you can get the fast falloff from a soft source to work for you too? The farther away you can get the talent from the back wall and the closer you can get their frontal soft key to them, the less light will get to the back wall and reflect forward. And, you can often use the talent to flag the source or reflection. BTW, why are you looking for frontal lighting, please? I teach that light makes a pool shot so getting off camera-axis reflection to work for you is the best solution to these deals.

And finally, a little reflection off that back wall is not necessarily a bad thing. I have specifically taken note of how often I see a bit of glare off such shiny wood walls in ASC DP'd movies, and it's common.

Finally, I work almost always on practical sets. So I greatly sympathize with your lighting challenges

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

If the lights from the batten strip don't look good, I have about 30 feet of rope light that would be perfect for behind the bar. Seeing the glare from the paneling kind of freaked me out at first. It is something I will keep my eye out for in the future, that is for sure.

I have not done it in quite a while but I use to study the shots in "Architectural Digest" to get 'lighting' setup for 'building' shots. One of the tricks was to place lights behind furniture, or the like to kick light into places
that were deep shadow, and to angle the light, perhaps with diffusion, so that there was a soft 'glow' from the hidden light that would allow for texture to be picked up.

It pretty much became my 'bible' for lighting such subjects.