If you look back into a few of my past pictures, like this:

The bottom of the board

The bottom of the board

You can see a bit of glare on the board.  Sometimes it’s bad, sometimes it isn’t.  Most of the time, I see it and move the camera to NOT show really bad glare.  This is caused by the florescent lights above my workbench.  I needed to get a picture of another board, and the glare was worse than above.  Since my cell phone (which tends to be my primary camera) needs the light, I decided to deal with the issue.

The way to deal with this is to use a diffusing disc to diffuse the florescent light and eliminate the glare, like in the diagram below.

Diagram of arrangement.

Diagram of arrangement you see in the image below.

And yes, you can hold this with one hand, take a picture with the other hand…

2013-11-16 12.35.58

I think I spent $25+ on my diffusing disc at a specialty camera store.  However, I’m fairly sure it is no better than the $12 one at Amazon.  Additionally, I could use a clip light to put more light on the workbench and still eliminate the glare.  The point of the diffusing disc is to scatter the light.

Using this diffusing disc, the glare reduction is pretty obvious in this more recent image:

Look ma, no glare!

Look ma, no glare!


Category: General Stuff

About the Author

Andrew is the owner of this blog and enjoys computer programming, building things, and photography. He's a pretty busy guy, which explains why updates to this blog are so infrequent.

2 Responses to Getting Good Pics of PCBs Under Florescent Lights

  1. imabug says:

    a trick i often use is a sheet of paper or white cardboard to bounce light onto my subject. my workbench light is one of those desk lamps on an arm, so I can move it around a bit. usually works pretty well.

    • Andrew says:

      Being able to aim the light helps! My workbench has two overhead florescent lights, and they cannot be aimed.

      A thin white sheet might work as well as a diffuser, but you’d need a frame to hold it.


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