Lighting really makes a difference!

[Rent]

There seems to be an element of surprise that light influences a photograph. If you were to go back to the days of black and white film, it was always understood that the lighting was the main thing. People who started photography with colour film and even more, digital, have a lot to learn.
Just my tupence worth
Roy

[Mike Buckley]

It's great to see the interest in this topic.

Nothing has had more profound affect on my tabletop photography than the family of angles as demonstrated in the above exercise. Even when I was doing everyday walkabout photography, as an example of the exterior of a building, I knew to change my position to eliminate glare in a scene. Even so, I never knew until I read Light: Science & Magic and conducted the above exercise why changing my position made that happen.

Even so, any accomplished tabletop photographer's rule of thumb is to first try using a polarizer to eliminate unwanted glare. It takes so little time to try that method that even if it doesn't work nothing significant is lost. If it does work, potentially a lot of time is saved compared to using other methods to eliminate the unwanted glare.

If a polarizer doesn't work, then either the position of the light source, the subject or the camera must change to eliminate unwanted glare and that is because of the physics of light pertaining to the family of angles. My choice almost always is to change the position of the light source to remove it from the family of angles. Otherwise, I'll change the position of the subject just barely enough that the light source is no longer within the family of angles but not so much that the composition is dramatically changed. I don't remember ever moving the camera to affect the family of angles. That's because moving the camera might require also having to adjust the focus, depth of field, background and even the tabletop material.

[Tringa]

Another very interesting thread and one that neatly illustrates something I saw on another forum and have mentioned before on CiC -

Beginners think it is all about the camera.
Enthusiasts think it is all about the lens.
Photographers know it is all about the light.

Dave

[Rent]

Dave Which group would put people in who think every photograph has to be post processed, in a lot of cases out of all recognition ?
Roy

[Wavelength]

Great learning form your images; thank you very much

[Tringa]

Good point Roy and I can't think of a term for those folks.

I think pretty much all digital images need some post processing but there are some who produce images the like of which I haven't seen since I stopped taking recreational drugs. Fortunately I don't see quite as many of these as I did a few years ago.

The skill of course even with quite severe processing is to make it look unobtrusive. I have to admit I cringe sometimes when I look back at some of my shots from a few years back.

Dave