How to light reflective surfaces?

[PKMN Collector]

Hi!

I've recently started a channel opening Pokemon cards. I didn't have any lighting to begin with and used a nearby lamp which made everything yellow. I tried my best to fix it with camera settings but in the end I bought one of those Charm Eyes phone selfie ring lights which I have attached over the lens of my camera with elastic bands!

But as you may know Pokemon cards are reflective, some of them are extremely shiny and I currently have this ring of light reflecting off every product.

I film pretty much top-down (will be upgrading to a new camera in the future with an articulated screen because right now I have to stand to make sure it's in shot and it hurts my back!) and don't have much space for a big light to go but if it folded away I could probably make it work.

Just wanted some advice about whats best to use and how to position etc

Thanks!

 

[joshcary]

You may try placing the small ring light on something and shooting the light across the cards. Then bounce light back with a white piece of poster board and just move things around until the image is clean. It's tough to give perfect advice when I can't see the setup, but that would be my first test and then adjust from there. You aren't however going to be able to get it to not reflect badly with the light coming from the camera.

 

[PKMN Collector]

You may try placing the small ring light on something and shooting the light across the cards. Then bounce light back with a white piece of poster board and just move things around until the image is clean. It's tough to give perfect advice when I can't see the setup, but that would be my first test and then adjust from there. You aren't however going to be able to get it to not reflect badly with the light coming from the camera.

Thanks for replying

There's no setup to show really just my camera mounted on a tripod facing down! I keep it behind my desk and bring it out when I want to film.

I have tried placing the ring light around on different sides (propped up against something) but the light becomes very one sided and creates shadow.

I don't know where I'd get a poster board from either I'm afraid