Do You Have Non-Glare Coating On Your Glasses?

My son's 5th grade class picture was really sad. The lighting was one large umbrella about 10 feet up and bright as heck. The 8 or 9 kids with glasses all had glare except for my son, who has non-glare coating on his lenses because his mother is a photographer and hates the glare in the pictures. The only one without glare.

Do you generally let people leave their glasses on and angle their faces to not reflect, make them take off their glasses, or just don't care or do you work it out later in PP?

SuzyView wrote in post #5104373
My son's 5th grade class picture was really sad. The lighting was one large umbrella about 10 feet up and bright as heck. The 8 or 9 kids with glasses all had glare except for my son, who has non-glare coating on his lenses because his mother is a photographer and hates the glare in the pictures. The only one without glare.

Do you generally let people leave their glasses on and angle their faces to not reflect, make them take off their glasses, or just don't care or do you work it out later in PP?

I'm not sure what you mean by a "non-glare coating". Do you mean a Transitions or photochromatic tint? Or do you mean an anti-reflection coating?

The photochromatic tints in spectacle lenses are not desirable in group photography because the flash (or umbrella lighting) darkens the tint so the wearer looks like they have sunglasses on. I would ask them to remove the glasses if that was the case...it just doesn't look right.

As for the anti-reflection coating...that's another matter. It's more-or-less the same as the coatings on the camera lenses and reduces or eliminates the reflections off the spectacle lens altogether. That's very desirable for photography.

If you have a subject WITHOUT anti-reflection coatings on the spec lenses, then yes, it's best to tilt the lenses slightly to try and remove the reflections....or move your point of view.

The non-glare coating is what I'm thinking. When asked if I wanted to spend the extra at Costco (which was rated one of the best places to get glass, BTW) for the special coating, I asked how much? But then thought, "I take ton of pictures of my son and he wears glasses all the time and so do I!" So, I said, "Sure." Now I don't regret it. I think it's really important to have them.

I may have messed up my own poll, but part 2 is the taking of pictures of kids with glasses. I get the glare all the time and have to move the child around to get a good angle that doesn't reflect. But at the last school picture day, kids with glasses were asked to take their glasses off because with the film camera, the operator couldn't tell if the glasses reflected. I know my son wears his glasses all the time, so without them in his picture didn't seem like his true image. Does that make sense?

I'm an Optometrist in my other life. I'm pretty sure I know what you mean...The AR coatings on glasses are great for photography.

I agree...if the subject is known better with glasses on...then they should stay on for the photo.

If someone wears glasses then I try to photograph them with the glasses. It takes extra time sometimes but the end result is true portrait of that person.

The school picture company takes pictures with film, it's LifeTouch. They send a full packet to each family and you can buy the whole thing or one sheet at a time and return the shots. I hate letting them have the pictures back, but the shots are not that good. From the last 3 years, the shots have been too soft and not processed well. So to pay $12 for just the class picture and the kids all have glare, was disappointing.

I don't have AR on my glasses because I have Transition lenses and I don't believe it's available... of course I've never had photos taken of me wo I don;'t know if I have a reflection

I have anti-reflective coating on my glasses, my wife doesn't have it on hers. When we have a photo taken together, or if I take photos of her, I have her take her glasses off. If I'm shooting a group photo where lots of people are wearing glasses, I'll ask for those that wish to do so to take off their glasses and for those that won't to adjust the pose, but I usually resign myself to some post processing.

See, I knew this was a real issue! It's true! With digital, at least you can see right after if the glare happened. With film, it's not possible. So, the class pictures are always bad for me.

I want to get the coated ones for my next pair, but the nikon's multicoated lenses are overpriced. A friend of mine got a pair for 500 and it's just not worth it.

Next time I'm in russia I'll try to find a pair which are singly coated and they should be more than enough. I don't care much for pictures, but when driving at night I notice extra glare from the car lights with uncoated lenses. I'd rather have the extra bit of contrast than have an accident.

Maybe I'll just order two +1 diopter MC filters and make the eye technician cut them for my frame. lol

I did go for the AR coating, and I spent a little while debating, but I am glad I went with it. I think that people who usually wear glasses have a slightly pale look around their eyes when they take them off, so I would try to get them to keep the glasses on. There should be a way to fix it with the lighting setup as well, but I don't have any portrait experience.