poiter wrote:
I've tried floating glass off the ground propped up by clear containers. It turns out glass is highly reflective.

Why are you fixated about standing on plexi-glass?
Put down a white cloth and then have the model stand on two cups.

Ken Marcus Studios wrote:
We use a large sheet of white plexiglass, lit from underneath to eliminate shadows on catalog shots against white seamless.

Before digital, that's how it was done.

KM

How do you mean lit from underneath? If you mean from below the white plxeiglass, and the model is on top of the white plexiglass, how is the plexiglss supported?

poiter wrote:
How do you mean lit from underneath? If you mean from below the white plxeiglass, and the model is on top of the white plexiglass, how is the plexiglss supported?

The same way you supported that large clear float glass you tried, as mentioned in your OP.

Orca Bay Images wrote:

The same way you supported that large clear float glass you tried, as mentioned in your OP.

Gets expensive. A piece of plexi 4x4 that you can stand on while it is above ground.

Support the plexi above ground, and blast light underneath it.
Similar has been mentioned several times.

Have the model jump and have a ton of light hit the empty floor.

poiter wrote:

How do you mean lit from underneath? If you mean from below the white plxeiglass, and the model is on top of the white plexiglass, how is the plexiglss supported?

He has a very narrow view of 'how it was done' before or after anything. Getting a piece of plexiglass or acrylic that will support the weight of a model standing is generally prohibitively expensive or at the very least heavy. I have had a 3x3' piece of 1" acrylic which could be used for that purpose but it was easily 50lbs. A 4x8' acrylic would be considerably heavier and I'm still not sure I would put a model on it with a light source underneath fearing the surface would crack in half. 4x4' is probably the maxi light box I would consider standing a model unless it was a cinema quality set build. I take that is not what you are capable of at the moment.

More regularly shooting white with shadowless floor for catalogs before or after digital was done on a platform, but the plexi (or as I suggested linoleum) was generally on a plywood base supported by 5 or 6 apple boxes. If you are using white plexi still put white paper down beneath for pure white. Again I prefer linoleum for a smoother surface without that mirror effect) However there was not a light source underneath, rather there was a controlled lit background which fills in the . Often people would use 2 or 4 heads firing into white seamless or white cyclorama and carefully balanced to slightly above the main exposure. 4 heads allows for more control of the evenness of the white/light across the background.

The elevation of the platform eliminates the curve of the seamless which receives light at different values. With careful control you can loose the horizon line at the rear end of the plexi or linoleum sheet. Some people devise a curved or humped top elevation to have a soft transition to the bright background. Others let the plexi hang off the rear horizon edge a few inches to get some of the light passing thru it.

Some people get super serious about metering the background and will do incident readings of each source. Having done literally months and months of this kind of shooting I can generally eyeball the spread of the light and take an incident reading of the background behind the head of the model because at that point the background becomes a light source which you can read with an incident (the white dome) reading. For that I use 1:1 w/ main exposure as a starting point for clean white background. If you find that you are still getting detail on the floor surface, increase the power of the background. Think of it as a giant soft box behind your model. Some people even use huge scrims behind the model, but it is not absolutely necessary.

IF you are still using speedlights, this will generally not work unless you are using a shit load of them and at that point, studio strobes would actually be cheaper. With practice and the right light modifiers, all of this is possible with 3 lights (usually in bigger soft boxes or umbrellas). Unfortunately this is where differences in quality of lenses comes into play. General rule is that cheaper lenses, especially kit lenses suffer from unwanted lens flare with backlit subjects. Conversely my Zeiss lenses with more elements and superior lens coatings tend to laugh at blown out backgrounds and render sharp, contrasty images even in backlight. I even had a Hasselblad H lens that was susceptible to lens flare that I would never use on this set up so I would routinely swap it for the Hasselblad's version of the kit lens--the 80mm f2.8. Lens flare can be controlled by placing flags or black cards just outside the crop of the image.

If you haven't deduced by now, you can dive in very deep even if it is still just white seamless. I haven't even mentioned the main light.

Herman Surkis wrote:
Gets expensive. A piece of plexi 4x4 that you can stand on while it is above ground

.

One doesn't need to get a super-thick, pricey piece of plexi that can bear the model's weight, since the OP alredady has a stout piece of float glass that has already proven to do just that. Just lay a thin sheet of white plexi atop the already-raised and supported sheet of heavy glass.

Since the OP already has the float glass, he doesn't need a sheet of plexi. A flexible translucent sheet of plastic might do the trick.

Have the model jump and have a ton of light hit the empty floor.

That would restrict the OP to shooting models in mid-jump. Might not work for shots involving elaborate hair and wardrobe.

Philip Brown wrote:
I always heard,
“if you want to get rid of glass reflections, use a polarizing filter”

Interesting! Thanks for sharing. I did a google search. The first webpage I pulled up said probably not, so that added to my skepticism. On this page https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3820124 someone wrote...

"A polarizer will remove polarized light. The light reflected from glass is not polarized at normal incidence but is fully polarized when the angle of incidence is 56 degrees.

So, if the reflections are coming off at 56 degrees or close to it, then a polarizing filter can be rotated to eliminate them. But if you're talking about portraits, the subject's glasses are typically nearly normal to the camera axis so a polarizer won't do anything."

Then I stopped reading that page.

I then looked at another link from google https://hoyafilterusa.com/how-circular- … ers-work/, half way down the page there is a before and after of a man behind a cafe window. While it doesn't completely remove it, it does most of the heavy lifting.

I haven't used a polarized lens in years, so I'll have to dig around my gear and look for it and do a test.

poiter wrote:
BTW I've also test green screen. It works really well for waist up or 3/4 body poses. It isolates poorly for full body because the green fabric reflects on to the feet and shoes, thus creating a green cast on the feet and shoe area. I'm sure this can be fix in post manually, but that isn't what I'm about. Where possible I only look for fully automated solutions.

err.. you've already talked about using "software automation".
last i checked, studios automate removing the green cast as well as all the other stuff ;-)

poiter wrote:
To sum up, of all the different ways I've tried this week, and all the different solutions that everyone has so kindly shared, my most preferred option is to wait to see if I can find a developer that can automate removing shadows and reflections like the website remove.bg can. Having that solution would be the easiest to shoot and to edit, and also makes the photos most versatile.

Do what you like, but it seems like you are attempting to use a canon to swat a fly. You can light a white set up to defeat all shadows. Period. It is done literally every day at Ecommerce studios without relying on AI.

Dan Howell wrote:

Do what you like, but it seems like you are attempting to use a canon to swat a fly. You can light a white set up to defeat all shadows. Period. It is done literally every day at Ecommerce studios without relying on AI.

I hear you. Any chance you might have any sample images that is similar to what we are talking about lying around on your computer that I can take a look at. Right now, from my own (flawed) tests, shadows are impossible to get rid of in camera if the subject is standing on any surface, be that material white, or translucent. The only way I've seen in my own tests to mostly get rid of shadow is for the model to stand on a tiny clear object, where most of the feet is floating.

Regarding AI, the technology to do really good, near perfect isolation with just one click is clearly coming. Remove.bg is already doing it, it is only a matter of time before other companies catch up. If I can get the tools now at a cost that is affordable to me, why not. Regardless, I'm open to all options, they just have to be automate-able

poiter wrote:
Any chance you might have any sample images that is similar to what we are talking about lying around on your computer that I can take a look at.

I have to say that I don't generally get assignments with shadowless in-camera capture as the goal. Just as frequently as blown out white, I get assigned to keep tone in the white. This is a quick comparison from images I had quick access to of the different reflectance of different surfaces: Linoleum, Plexi and Seamless. Again, my goal was not to eliminate the shadow, but to produce clean white without a horizon line.

They were shot roughly similarly with large soft boxes illuminating the background. The middle has a hotter background-to-foreground ratio as requested by client. Left two are more overhead lighting; right one is more high-side lighting. I haven't done a platform shoot in a bit and really don't have the time to go searching for images from the last one.

http://danhowell.info/WhiteTest.jpg

General tips to reduce floor shadow and/or reflectance:
-lower camera angle
-careful 1:1 lighting ratio from main light to background
-Main or Front light with less angle to the model, possibly tipped down to defeat the fall-off of light as it spreads down body of model.
-low-angle light for legs/feet or ring flash fill.

I prefer linoleum to plexi though I end up shooting on plexi more often.


edit:  i mean matte white Formica, not linoleum. it is a hard surface that is easy to clean. Some types of linoleum are also good for this purpose.

Dan Howell wrote:

I have to say that I don't generally get assignments with shadowless in-camera capture as the goal. Just as frequently as blown out white, I get assigned to keep tone in the white. This is a quick comparison from images I had quick access to of the different reflectance of different surfaces: Linoleum, Plexi and Seamless. Again, my goal was not to eliminate the shadow, but to produce clean white without a horizon line.

They were shot roughly similarly with large soft boxes illuminating the background. The middle has a hotter background-to-foreground ratio as requested by client. Left two are more overhead lighting; right one is more high-side lighting. I haven't done a platform shoot in a bit and really don't have the time to go searching for images from the last one.

http://danhowell.info/WhiteTest.jpg

General tips to reduce floor shadow and/or reflectance:
-lower camera angle
-careful 1:1 lighting ratio from main light to background
-Main or Front light with less angle to the model, possibly tipped down to defeat the fall-off of light as it spreads down body of model.
-low-angle light for legs/feet or ring flash fill.

I prefer linoleum to plexi though I end up shooting on plexi more often.

Thanks for taking the time to find some examples to show me. Your photos look pretty similar to what I already know how to shoot. I do own linoleum, though I rarely shoot on them. They scuff really easily and just more effort to clean, where as white plexi is really easy and quick to clean with magic eraser.

FIFTYONE PHOTOGRAPHY wrote:
Although I've yet to master Ghosts on White a building product commonly known as Marlite (?) will eliminate reflections around the feet.( basically a waterproof wallboard which comes in 4 x 8 sheets ).    As pointed out careful placement of background lights should eliminate any shadows.   


The look You're seeking can be accomplished in Camera,  I simply don't own enough lights at this time.

Thanks for the tip on Marlite. I'll look it up on google.

poiter wrote:
Thanks for the tip on Marlite. I'll look it up on google.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Parkland-Plast … el/3436816


^  I'm fairly certain this is the product I use as a floor.

FIFTYONE PHOTOGRAPHY wrote:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Parkland-Plast … el/3436816


^  I'm fairly certain this is the product I use as a floor.

Thanks for the link, I appreciate it! Though I need both reflection AND shadows to not exist in camera. This thing, like all other things will have a shadow.

poiter wrote:

Thanks for the link, I appreciate it! Though I need both reflection AND shadows to not exist in camera. This thing, like all other things will have a shadow.

Not if You light it correctly.