Hey! Got my Order of the Stick poster!

Most nifty:

…OK, how do people take pictures of things under glass without also taking a picture of their reflection? Do you have to use a telephoto lens?

12 thoughts on “Hey! Got my Order of the Stick poster!”

  1. 1) how did you get the poster?

    2) dont use a flash, a decent camera with good light will work, the flash causes the reflection

  4. You could of course take the picture out of the glass if it isn’t too difficult

  6. As Rob points out, a circular polarizing filter over the lens helps a lot, although it won’t totally eliminate the reflection. Linear polarizers don’t work for that application.

    For taking good pictures through glass you use a view camera, which can be set up to take the picture at an angle to the glass but compensate for the wedge effect by rotating the back parallel to the subject. A hand camera, film or digital, doesn’t have that motion, but you can approximate it by taking the picture just enough off-axis to eliminate the reflection, then correcting it afterward using PhotoShop, The GIMP, or some other image manipulation program.

  7. Would a tilt-shift lense help? Unfortunately we would need a serious fundraiser for Moe for the cost (car wash?).

    1. Whoa, whoa, whoa. All I want out of a camera is the ability to take reasonably good videos on the fly with it, and I already have two of those. 🙂

  8. Spegen: a tilt-shift lens would help, yes. It’s a portable approximation of the front board of a view camera. Unfortunately they’re expensive, and only fit on expensive bodies — Moe would have to attract derisive attention from Obama himself to make enough off the tip jar to set it up.

    Best to use an image manipulation program to correct the distortion. Even the simpler ones tend to have that function available.

  9. As others have said, just don’t place the camera directly perpendicular to the glass when taking the photo. Offsetting the camera just a little can get it out of the path of the reflected light from the flash.

    Simple geometry says the the farther away the camera is, the smaller the necessary offset.

    Taking the photo from a longer distance will also reduce the distortion due to the slight angle of the subject to the camera.

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