shooting portraits of someone with glasses

lilmomma

My stepson wears glasses and I always want to get pictures of him but my flash always produces a glare. I've tried putting my (off camera) flash in different places and still no good. Even when not using flash outside still sometimes the sun will glare. It's like where I would have catchlights on someone w/out glasses is the glare on him. then the other issue is that the focus always falls on the frames, and I really want to hit the eyes with it. How do any of you deal with this? right now i've been having him take his glasses off but he always has his glasses on so the photo isn't a true representation of him. (Plus he gets annoyed without them b/c he can't see)

any ideas, tips, tricks, etc...???

Art Scott

normally you can see the glare prior to shooting if you just take the time to look.....also if you see glare a very slight tip of the head and it is gone.....most portraits with glasses has the head so very slightly tipped down so no glare and also you can see the pupils very well.......OH YES the glasses should also be clean and free of finger prints or that can show up also..............

chrisdg

I'm not a portrait pro, but maybe soften the flash with a diffuser or softbox, and/or try bouncing the flash off the ceiling or a neutral wall behind you. Also, it seems that a circular polarizer might help reduce the glare that the lens sees if you can afford the loss of light it imparts. Finally, and probably most important, do his glasses have the anti-glare coating? If not, consider getting this feature added to his next pair of lenses. It goes a long way in eliminating glare and reflections, and not just for photography.

pathfinder

As for focus, use a single AF point on the eyelashes, not on the frame. Cheaper DSLRs strongly prefer to focus on sharp, high contrast lines that are closer to the camera, over softer, lower contrast features farther away if you permit them to do so. Or go to manual focus, so that you control what is in focus.

Despite what manufacturers would love you to believe, AF is not just point in the general direction and shoot, as you have already noticed. It requires skill and concentration to keep it where you want it to be.

LiquidAir

When taking a picture of someone with glasses you need to be careful about how you place your strobes. Here's a few tips:

Make sure your fill light is large. I use a 60" shoot through umbrella as close to my subject as I can get it (typically very close to the camera). If it is both large and a stop or two down, any glare you get will be dim and diffuse.

Move you key light well off axis. In particular, styles of lighting where the key is significantly above your subect (like butterfly and Rembrandt) are usually safer, though with care you can make any of the standard lighting styles work with care in how you pose your subject.

Posing a subjct with glasses staight on is tricky. Normally I avoid the straigtht on pose, preferring short lighting (head turned toward the key) for most subjects. If I have subject with long hair (covering the ear) that I want to feature I'll use broad lighting (head turned away from the key). If I want a straight on pose I plan my lighting carefully. I find the safest choice in this case is butterfly lighting with the fill coming from below the camera.

Qarik

for glasses to avoid the glare you have to have teh strobe off camera left or right. Instead of trying to memorize which way he shoudl poitn wrt to the strobe do this..

if the strobe is left and his left cheek is prominent..and you get a specular highlight off his glasses (glare), then simply have him turn the other way so his right cheek is prominent. The glasses have now flipped through the center axis point and that shoudl get rid of the specular highlights.

or in other words broad lighting

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/04/lighting-101-lighting-for-glasses.html

noone

Shooting with glasses
You can also have him adjust his glasses. For dead-on shots, have him raise the arms of the glasses slightly. This will tilt the glasses down and avoid highlights. For a side shot, it will look odd, but will work for dead-on shots.

As a previous poster mentioned, you want to create an angle on the glasses so when your flash bounces off the glasses it doesn't come back to the camera. You can also have him turn his to the left or right slightly.

Trevlan

Keep your flash high and out of the family of angles from the glasses.

example

example 2

Most strobes have a modeling light. I have a cheap SB 800 and it has this feature.

lilmomma

great advice guys, thanks! Had I thought about it "geometrically" I may have figured it out. Makes sense now!