I started a little brainstorm to find out a good poor man’s reflector for close-up photography. I first suggested a pocket mirror but then Eddie suggested a aluminum foil. Well, let’s see how it work in practice. …

I took a piece of foil and went out shooting in bright sunny day. When I tried to shoot an object that is close (tip of a pine branch), I first find out it was not so easy to hold the foil so it would bring more light into shadows. Then the next problem was to find room for a camera. Next I found out I easily cast a shadow on the foil with my hand holding the camera, thus loosing the boost of the reflection. Then I noticed it’s difficult not to shoot the reflector when camera with wide angle lens is used. Finally I found somewhat satisfactory point of view, but it really wasn’t easy.

Then I tried to shoot something bigger and further away from the camera. Like the pictures of the dead seagull above shows, it was much more straightforward thing to do. No more problems to cast the shadow on the reflector or difficulties to keep the reflector out of the picture. And it really works.

However, after running some more tests inside, when no direct sunlight used, it turned out the aluminum foil really is not the best solution. Piece of white paper is! Therefore I seriously started to think I should get a white umbrella instead of more manly black one 😀