Settings for reflective surfaces

[Kenneth Walker]

Visited my favourite aircraft museum a few days ago (Imperial War Museum, Duxford) A bit overcast, unfortunately, but took this of one of the airworthy aeroplanes. As you can see, polished aluminium finish. Doesn't seem to "pop" though. How can I get the best result, either with camera settings or subsequent editing.

 

[smoke665]

In camera, if you camera supports Composite mode, with your camera on a tripod you can take multiple shots combined into one using additive, average or bright. If not use bracketing to maintain highlights/shadows and combine post. Depending on light direction you can sometimes use a polarizing filter.

 

[weepete]

It's very difficult to get things to pop in conditions where you have overhead soft diffuse lighting (like you get on overcast days). Really you need a well lit subject, with some directional light. It's the difference between light and shadow that creates the pop, so well exposed subjects on an underexposed background are normally what we mean when we talk about it. Settings wise, I'd shoot to preserve the highlights.

In order to do it under those conditions I think you'd need to light the plane with some studio strobes.

In post you could always try and burn the background, but I'd be tempted to desaturate or try a monochrome here

 

[RVT1K]

I've been there!! I spent a summer in Cambridge for training when I started with my current company.

Since I don't have the post-processing skills many seem to, I think the only way to really make it pop is to go back on a sunny day. Imagine how nice a vivid blue sky would look against a dazzling plane.

 

[Soocom1]

just my two cents worth here, take it with a grain of salt.

Overcast days cranks up the color temp to well over 6000K. (blue-grey).
As previously mentioned, a polarizer is part in part. But usually better on sunny days because your trying to change the contrast. same with a ND filter.
So another way of looking at it would to be to play a bit with the White Balance and drop the kelvin down a bit closer to 5K or something in between because you don't want it too yellow.

The reflections themselves are blue in nature and you need the blue wavelengths to create the reflections in the first place.

Then meter for a balance between the high and low areas and I may be wrong but I seem to remember to drop about a half stop or so.

With digital you can get instant results.

Shoot for around f11 then work down.

 

[smoke665]

The image isn't that bad really, a little overexposed, but most if not all the issues can quickly be repaired in post, either in Lr or Ps. If you'd like someone to try, please change your post to reflect photos okay to edit.

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

The capture is fine, but I could show you a few processing tricks that may help only you have a *no edit* flag.

The basics are reducing the contrast on the fuselage by using a *watercolour* blur effect. It sounds odd but it works on a principle of the overall impression of light through relative values rather than absolute in much the same way that you can make lightbulbs appear brighter if they are slightly blurred and slightly duller if you sharpen and increase the darker areas to gain detail. Couple this with an overlay that shifts the aluminium slightly towards a light blue/grey (being able to make something appear bright without using max white allows you to introduce colour to the brightest parts as well, whereas if you try to maintain contrast and detail you will darken the whole. It's a balance between the both).

You can also darken the surrounding countryside progressively as it moves to the distance so the sky is slightly greyer.

If you're subtle the effects can look very natural and effective.

 

[Kenneth Walker]

Yes, thanks....it was a quick upload for comments, rather than a gallery shot, but point taken.

 

[tirediron]

Just for the record, a polarizer is not going to affect the aircraft, irrespective of the nature or direction of the light. Light reflected off of bare metal cannot be polarized.