Family of Angles

Does this apply only to sniny reflective objects when using flash?
The reason I ask is, I have watched many videos of tutorials showing setups of how they took the shots, and I have seen some, and wondered how some of the umbrellas, soft boxes etc. where actually pointed at an angle towards the camera, that I said to myself how come these light are not effecting the camera lens and messing with the photo.
A lot of the videos I saw the lighting for the video were really bright and I thought doesn't that effect image quality.
Thanks guys

I stumbled across this Science Light Magic you can see it at below link and have just browsed through it so far on my iPad.

https://ruizvalarino.f​iles.wordpress.com …photographic-lighting.pdf

That's a great book to have for reference. If you do not have it yet, I recommend you get a copy. I have the older hardcopy book and when a later edition came out, I bought the Kindle version of it.

But to answer your question, the effect of the angle of light is more predominant with shiny surfaces but the angle of light also affect duller surfaces to some extent, too. As a matter of fact, anything type of surface that reflects light would be affected by it.

the surface of an object isn't going to change the physics of how light behaves ... angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection.

but how that reflection is seen by either the viewer or the camera will change due to the surface.

DigitalDon wrote in post #18102114
Does this apply only to sniny reflective objects when using flash?

The surface doesn't have to be "shiny", as long as it's bright enough.

It depends on the quality of the lens. Most complex lenses are engineered to reduce flare, but that doesn't mean that some will creep through if you aren't careful.

PacAce wrote in post #18102345
But to answer your question, the effect of the angle of light is more predominant with shiny surfaces but the angle of light also affect duller surfaces to some extent, too. As a matter of fact, anything type of surface that reflects light would be affected by it.

If it didn't reflect some light, we couldn't see it at all? ; )

Here's a question for the measurebaters among us: Glass is transparent to light, but not transparent to all of it. So what makes some light be reflected from it & some not? ; D

PhotosGuy wrote in post #18102573
Here's a question for the measurebaters among us: Glass is transparent to light, but not transparent to all of it. So what makes some light be reflected from it & some not? ; D

pretty sure that's the "magic" part.

:P

Thank you guys for replying to my post.
In one example they showed a cloth shot inside the angle, it was flat lighted and no contrast, the took another shot outside the angle and the pic showed the black objects in the cloth with clarity and there was no flat dull lighting.
I think this is one of my problems with the dull lighting and no shadows in my pic.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #18102573
If it didn't reflect some light, we couldn't see it at all? ; )

Even if an object did not reflect light, we would still be able to "see" it if the things around it reflected light. You'd see a totally black object! But the angle of the light would not have any effect on how we see that object because the light would be totally absorbed by that object. The only time the angle of light would come into play is if the object does reflect light no matter how little as long as it can be detected by our eyes or the camera.

DigitalDon wrote in post #18102581
Thank you guys for replying to my post.
In one example they showed a cloth shot inside the angle, it was flat lighted and no contrast, the took another shot outside the angle and the pic showed the black objects in the cloth with clarity and there was no flat dull lighting.
I think this is one of my problems with the dull lighting and no shadows in my pic.

That's not so much the family of angles and reflection but the micro-shadows formed when the light strikes the subject at any angle other than 0°. You see this with the sun: when it's at its highest point and if you were in the equator you'd see no shadow cast by a person standing in the open (the shadow would be directly below the person, i.e. 'unseen'), but as soon as the sun advances you'd see the shadow advance in the opposite direction and grow longer as the sun goes down.

In photographic lighting we call this 'raking light'. Raking light is paramount when you need to show a subject's texture. Conversely, when you need to hide a subject's texture (say wrinkles on a woman), then you avoid raking light and use frontal lighting.

Thanks guys
I have looked at the glamour and nude section to be able to see the effects of light on bare skin without all the other distractions, mainly clothes.
I have noticed everything from silhouettes, to photos that in my opinion was close to being washed out, but was not totally washed.
And the ones I thought were close to washed out were the ones that I can identify with my photo taking abilities with, there is no details just a dull white image, the other photos the white skin had contrast in the white and blacks that made the model pop out in the photo.
I have tried the low key lighting but they look like an overly under exposed imagine that I have to try Lightroom to bring the light back in to the photo which I think just screws the photo up.
I guess I have more light than I do room to shoot pictures in 12x12 room and clutter with a bed and furniture.