Obtaining good glass photos can be easy if you are willing to make a small investment in a good background cloth and use proper lighting. The background cloth should be slightly darker than medium gray, solid color cloth. An alternative background can be a white cloth for dark items and a black cloth for light and crystal items. The black and white cloth alternative can sometimes cause a camera to make a false reading and create a photo with inaccurate glass colors. The gray cloth background provides the best results. The background cloth must be a solid color. Never use a floral or patterned cloth.

Lighting is probably the most critical factor in obtaining good glass photos. Most artificial lighting sources will distort glass colors to some extent. Natural daylight on an overcast day creates the best color rendition but, if the use an artificial light source is more convenient, use the strongest bulb you can obtain with a 3200K rating. Do not allow any other artificial light source to reach the glass item. Turn off your flash. If you have the option to set the "white balance" or "color balance" in your camera, change the setting to "tungsten" when using tungsten bulbs.  3200K tungsten light bulbs can be obtained over the Internet and at many photography stores and are the least expensive artificial lighting source. A single 500-watt bulb (code ECT) provides an excellent lighting source. A silver reflector can increase the strength of the tungsten bulb but is not necessary. 3200K flood bulbs with built-in reflector are also available and are slightly more expensive than tungsten bulbs. 3200K quartz halogen bulbs are also available but are far more expensive than either the tungsten bulbs or photoflood bulbs. The light source should be from either side at approximately a 90-degree angle to the line from the camera to the item. The angle should be slightly less than 90 degrees for opaque items and slightly more than 90 degrees for transparent glass. The use of multiple bulbs will increase the number of "burn" spots in the photograph and is not recommended except as described below.

Burns spots can be expected using any artificial lighting source. Burns spots can be slightly reduced by hanging a white diffuser between the light and the glass item. The diffuser can be made from white cloth, plastic or vinyl. The heavier the diffuser material, the more light will be lost. A very inexpensive diffuser can be made from a vinyl shower liner available at many large box stores. Very thin vinyl liners can be doubled to increase their effectiveness. No diffuser will eliminate the burn spots and will actually increase the size of the spots but will reduce the intensity of the spots.

A polarizing filter on the camera can also reduce the intensity of the burn spots and may even eliminate them in some cases. However, polarizing filters are not cheap and are not available for many cameras. A polarizing filter will also reduce the available light on the glass item. A combination of a hanging diffuser and a polarizing filter is the most effective method to reduce burn spots but so much light is lost that the camera must be mounted on a tripod and may not leave enough light to take a photograph. This is the one time that multiple 500-watt bulbs may be required.

Lighting and Vinyl Diffuser

Photography Setup

The shooting angle is another consideration. It should be a slightly downward angle from the camera to the item for most items. If the angle is too high, some details may be hidden such as stem details on comports. If the angle is too low, top details may be lost. Very flat items like plates and shallow bowls should be placed on plain wire display racks for best lighting. If racks are not available, you can shoot straight down on the item. You may also want to take separate photos of the top and bottom of some items. Some plates and bowls have all their design details on the bottom.

Shoot only one item per photograph. Multi-part sets should be shot together, separately and in different combinations such as 3-piece mayonnaise sets with bowl, underplate and ladle. Do one photo of the whole set, one photo of each item separately and one photo of the bowl and ladle together for a total of five photos. Cambridge often sold such items in different combinations and separately.

Do not try to shoot so close to the item that there is danger of missing part of the item. Low light close-ups also have a shallower "depth of field" meaning that some part of the item may be in focus while other parts are not in focus.

Do not do any post-photography modification of the photograph. Do not "crop" the photo to eliminate extra background or change the brightness and/or contrast of the photo. The album administrators can do that if it appears necessary. You'll have enough to do just taking the photos.

It is also essential that we have a complete description of the item photographed. It can be impossible to correctly identify an item's size from a photograph alone. We request that the filename be change to accurately describe an item using the file naming guidelines provided separately. I can also be helpful for you and for us if you include a vertical ruler in the photograph placed at the same distance from the camera lens as the item being phototgraph. It is amazing that a 4" bowl will look the same as a 12" bowl once the photograph is taken.

Those individuals providing glass photographs can rest assured that the photos will be used only on this web site and for no other reason.  A general acknowledgement list will be created at a future date to recognize your contribution to this project. No ownship of any individual items will be identified.