How to light Stainless Steel?

12 years 2 months ago #200917 by Powell Pink
I am going to be photographing large rotisseries that cook 12 chickens on a steel spike at the same time.
The exterior of the units are all stainless steel, and there is a flame seen behind the chickens through the closed glass doors of one of the units cooking the chickens. The glass doors need to be closed. The chickens will not be turning but already cooked.. I need to be able to capture the unit, chickens & flame with no reflections in the stainless.

My thought was to use numerous white 4’ x 8’ foam cores to block the reflections around the reflective parts of the stainless steel rotisseries. I am also thinking of using 2 or 3 daylight balanced flash monoblock units with umbrellas to light everything and then a bit of a time exposure to capture the flame. There are fluorescents (not many or strong but approx 25 feet up on the ceiling. I also have tungsten lamps, but they get very hot to work with. If I use the Tungsten lighting do I need to use a Gel to balance the fluorescents with the tungsten lights?

Naturally I want the colors to be proper due to the florescents.. I plan on making some kind of a box taping the foam cores to each other and hopefully putting 1 over the top of the rotisserie to block the fluorescents from affecting the colors. I will shoot in Raw so I can do some color corrections if necessary in Photoshop.

My Question.

Does this seem like the proper route to take? Which lighting system would you use?


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12 years 2 months ago #200922 by Radeio
I think color balancing is going to be a royal pain here. Is turning off the fluorescents and using only daylight-balanced strobes an option? You could also try a large scrim above the unit if you have space, as you've indicated, but I think that would be an awful lot of trouble. I would go with modifiers that cast the widest, most even light you can achieve. Do a second shot to get the flames and edit on post.


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12 years 2 months ago #200923 by Powell Pink
I agree almost impossible to color balance. I can't close the florescents. Would you use umbrellas on daylight balanced mono's to capture. I already have foamcores to block reflections. Thanks


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12 years 2 months ago #200926 by Brushet Pics
If you shoot with the strobes at your camera's sync speed the ambient light won't be an issue. But then lighting the interior might be interesting.

The reflections in the stainless steel are going to be pain but a "box" of foam core should work.

You might also want to bring a CP filter to help with the reflections in the glass.

Depending on the angles you may need to cover the front and the floor, bring lots of foam core.


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