Photographs through glass help

[lilynolife2002]

Hi,
Although I have the pleasure of owning a 350d, I am a total novice and still working on the point and shoot principle... one day i'll be better

Anyway, I have been to zoo recently and many of the animals can be seen through glass... but how do you take the perfick picture without getting the reflection of the glass.

I would say answers on a postcard please but I'd rather have an answer written in laymans terms that i'm likely to understand!

Also, is there any way of taking pictures through the cage without getting the cage or a way of editing the picture to remove the cage?

I am relying on all of you experts out there to help me....

TFL
Lesley

[allymac123]

I'm no expert but a couple of simple things you could try:
With glass - make sure you don't use this flash as this will just enhance reflections
- try to put the lens right up against the glass (literally touching it) as this will mean there will be no light for reflection.

Cages - Again get right in close to the fence and position the centre of the lens between any wires. You might need to zoom in a wee bit from that distance to completely remove anywires from the pic.

[Magslad]

For cages/bars, the best advice to avoid lots of post-processing is as allymac suggested: get right up against the wire, try to centralise the lens between any mesh, and then zoom in. If you find you have mesh/wire in the corners of any pictures (which you may have if the mesh is quite small) then most editing software will give you a way of getting rid of it (or alternatively you can crop the picture).

For glass, my suggestions would be:
- again as allymac suggested, don't use flash and get as close to the glass as possible
- you could try using a polarizing filter to reduce reflection from the glass (will probably only work if the glass is outside, as you lose some light by using a polarizer)
- if you are inside, set the ISO to a higher setting (to let in more light) and use a longer shutter speed. If you have image stabilisation (IS on Canon, VR on Nikon) on your lens use it, if not consider using a tripod/monopod to avoid camera shake

The picture of the frog that I posted in this thread was taken through glass inside a nocturnal reptile house (i.e. very dark!), with a shutter speed of 1/5 sec and VR turned on, I think either at ISO400 or 800, so you can get results through glass even in very poor light but only really with IS/VR or something to steady the camera to avoid camera shake.


Hope this helps.
Dave

[wabbitt]

The other thing you can do to get rid of wire mesh is to use a long zoom lens. When I mean a long zoom, I tried it with a Sigma 50-500 at it's longest end. I know this works witha 300mm lens too.

If you stand about 1 metre away from the mesh and use a long zoom to point towards your subject, you will actually notice that the mesh blurs away into nothing. Use the lowest f-stop (widest aperture) possible to blur the mesh away to nothing.

If you can still see some of the mesh, then just step slightly closer. I really wouldn't recommend putting the lens up agsint teh mesh though!!!

Honestly... it works.

As mentioned with glass, I find a circular polariser is the best method for getting rid of most reflections. Oh, yeah.. and don't use flash!!!

[richard plumb]

for mesh, longer zoom and/or wider aperture to help blur the mesh to nothing.

for glass, a circular polariser will help, but more important is having a dark background. I had a few shots at a zoo and you can see someone with a colourful stripey top in the reflection. A dark background will make the glass more transparant. So wear a dark top and if you can, have someone behind you to block the light (or make sure you're on your own)

[busterboy]

I took this with my 350D at 33,000ft obviously through glass.

As quoted use natural light and get as close the window as possible.

Again as quoted shooting through mesh fences shoot wide open and focus on the target, It can often make the fence look invisible with a little work in photoshop..

[Miniholic]

Be carefull, we don't want you getting too close though.

http://www.thatvideosite.com/view/902.html