Day 14 - Highlights

Quite a few of you asked me to explain the specular highlights I am often talking about, and although I throw in some simplifying terms some times, I can imagine it can be hard to picture it.

Luckily this is a photography blog, so what better place to show you exactly what it is all about.

More after the jump.....

Specular

Specular comes from the Latin word specularis which, loosely translated, means reflection in/of a mirror and it derives from the word speculum which means mirror. The word specular in English means of, relating to, or having the properties of a mirror.. Right, so far the language lesson for today. The thing you need to know is that it entails a mirrorlike quality, which often means you see a clear reflection of something.
This often happens when you use flash but it can happen with any other light source as well.
But it only occurs when your camera is at the same angle to the (reflecting) subject as your light source is.

Highlights

Normally you will only see this is small highlights and highlights are like the blinking star on the teeth of the man from the Mentos ads. They are rather small and you won't see them on the back of your camera, unless you check for them. On a larger format you always see them.
In general there is nothing wrong with some highlights, except when they become specular, which means the highlights clearly reflect something physical. And this you can see in the photo to the right.
This is a completely over the top example of specular highlights, but I think it brings across the picture here ;)

Hmmmm, Ribs

Normally I like the ribs, as in marinated and grilled to perfection, but when it comes to photography, I could easily do without them! The weird reflection you see in the iPhone are the ribs of an umbrella through which I shoot to diffuse (soften) the light.
Like I said, this is a completely over the top example, but they are also very visible in the first photo at the top. The highlight in that photo I like, but once again, I could do without the ribs. And if you look carefully you can even see a much better example of a specular highlight in that picture. The button at the bottom of the iPhone has some real good specular highlight in it.

The way it should be done (although badly)

To the left you see a photo of how it should be done. No highlights and a fairly equally distrubuted light.
In the subtitle I say badly and that is because this was a rush job and meant to be an example of specular highlights instead of a good macro photo (let's say that Macro means closeup of an object for now) of an iPhone. You do see some shades here and there, but that doesn't matter right now! Neither do my fatty fingerprints all over the bottom of the phone!

Stuff that matters

The thing that does matter is that you have no Specular Hightlights. Mind you, there are highlights to the right and a bit to the bottom and left of the phone (on the silver rims), but that was supposed to happen.
You do not see any mirrorlike reflections.

And in the end I do like photo one the best (the one at the top of the page) with its perculiar double specular highlights. That one, at least, has a little character, but hey, that would be in the eye of the beholder.

Let me know what's in your eye, you beholder you, and drop me a line in the comment section below.