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How to photograph a painting

(21 posts) (13 voices)

Started 3 years ago by bernard
Latest reply from mb
Related Topics:
1. Matte Painting / Photography, anyone?
2. Photographing Christmas Lights at Night?

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bernard

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I need to take a picture of a painting so that I can get some prints made from it. I need top quality and the printer has already asked me to provide a TIFF image in 300 DPI, advising me to use two daylight lamps at 45° either side of the painting.

The problem is that I don't have such an equipment, and buying it for one occasion only seems to be a waste, with a bill of $ 100.00 or more.

I'd rather use a cloudy day outside but I'm not sure how to get the very best result. I have a D300 with a choice of lenses (16-85, 70-200, 18-55, 10-24) and a sturdy tripod. In my opinion using a short tele will avoid too much distortion.

Last but not least, the artist did not varnish the painting to avoid reflexions during the photo (I can varnish it later).

Any advice will be very welcome :o)

Posted 3 years ago #
alphanikonrex

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I'd use the 70-200 at ƒ/8. Sharpest.

As for lighting, I do not know.

Posted 3 years ago #
bernard

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Thanks ! That's a good start :o)

Posted 3 years ago #
NikoDoby

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Hello Bernard.

Back when I was doing nude modeling for a community painting class I took photos of the art just as you described. Outdoors on an overcast day and it worked out well. What I also did was to angle the painting up opposite an aluminium wall to bounce light evenly across the surface. Depending on if the artwork has a lot of deep dark colors, it should help to bring out detail without giving you severe highlights. So in other words use something to reflect sunlight evenly on to the painting. Make sure you get your white balance set correctly since you're going to want the colors on the painting as close to the original as possible.

Here's an example of a artist painting I photographed with that technique.

I believe I used a focal length of 70 or 85mm but don't remember which lens I used.

And yes I'm joking about me posing for the class :^)

Posted 3 years ago #
bmxdad

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We all had to make a living when we where young, nothing to be ashamed of Niko

Pete

Just don't post any pictures, your might kill you know who

Posted 3 years ago #
NikoDoby

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I'm not ashamed of my six pack Pete, lol.

Posted 3 years ago #
shutterdancer

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My mother is a painter and years ago I shot several of her paintings with a Nikon FE with 50mm lens (all I had at the time)I placed them on a low table between two windows (soft shadowless natural light)used a tripod with bubble level and got excellent results.

Posted 3 years ago #
bernard

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Waouw ! Thanks Niko !

I think I have enough information there to get the result I'm looking for ! I can make some large reflectors like you describe, either white or aluminium, to control the light if necessary.
All I need is the right weather, and that should not take too long in this season.
And my D300/70-200 lens should do the job perfectly. I will also use time-delay to minimize vibrations even though my tripod is really stable (Belt and braces :o)

Thanks again everyone for your promptness !

Posted 3 years ago #
jonnyapple

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Good advice, Niko. An alternate way to do it is to shoot in a darkened room with a white ceiling and use bounce flash shot straight up or even a bit backward to avoid glare on the painting. You still get pretty good definition of the canvas/paint texture, but the advantage here is in setup time since the flash speed is fast enough to allow for a handheld shot. Here's one where that was the only choice, shot at my grandpa's funeral last year (sorry about the large file size. I don't know what I was thinking when I exported this!):
grandparents painting

Posted 3 years ago #
jbl

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Basically you want a sharp telephoto lens, stopped down a bit to make sure either everything is in focus (we never know these days with 200mm f/2 and paintings with lots of textures hahaha) and make sure the lens is as sharp as possible.

A tripod would help to make sure the frame is perfect.. also, depending on how important the shoot is, I'd make sure that the canvas and the camera are aligned, you don't want weird perspective, you want straight lines to make a clean crop after.. of course you can modify this in photoshop but meh why not doing it correctly.

Then you have to check for your lighting: you want no reflexions and no shadows.. lighting from angles...

The last but most important aspect will be your color balance, my mother is a painter and it takes less than your fastest shutter speed under a bright sun for her to see if the colors are like the original painting.

I'd use a preset white balance because it can be confusing to fix it in PP.

Posted 3 years ago #
Willis

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Putting it outside and shooting it is the easiest way to get decent results. You also have to consider the medium. Acrylics and the like can be very prone to glare... Others are less glare prone, and can handle direct light a little better.

Most of the art shots I see on the web look kind of flat compared to the real deal. If texture is part of the painting, then you've got your work cut out for you.

Posted 3 years ago #
mb

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The best way I know is it to use couple of lights positioned at 45 degrees to paint with polarizing filter sheets over them and a polarizer filter on the lens twisted by 90 degrees compared to lights filters.

Posted 3 years ago #
shutterdancer

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In other words bernard.....there are several ways that you can skin this cat :) Take it with the best lens that you have,with the best lighting that you can muster...on a tripod if possible,and your results should be fine.

Posted 3 years ago #
RobertD

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I have done quite of bit of this during my studio days. I used a flat field lens, macro would do nicely, and I still have this system. http://www.bencher.com/photo/brochure/vp400brochure.pdf
...the one at the top of the page is the one I have. I use a Pola screens in front of the lights and also a pola on the camera. This completely eliminates all reflections that occur on those "peaks" of oil paint. I always had great luck with this system. Good luck.

By the way, the lighting system is for sale as I no longer do this.

Posted 3 years ago #
jbl

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The 70-200 is obviously the best lens you have to do this job.

RobertD, how much are you selling it? I seriously doubt that I will buy it but I know a photographer who almost only shoot canvas.. How large is it? I think most of what this photographer shoot is over 36"x48" tho.

Posted 3 years ago #
bernard

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Waouw ! Thanks guys ! I think I do have everything I need. It's now down to me to use all this good stuff.

The painting is basically oil, but the artist also used some acrylic. He did not varnish it and that's good. I checked for paint peaks and did not find any which are so big that they could cause a reflection. The canvas is no problem either. I intend to get this printed either on paper or canvas (Giclée). I have a few of those canvas prints and they are really impressive when done professionally.

The printer is confident that we can get something identical to the original using EPSON digigraphy. That will keep the cost down :o)

Posted 3 years ago #
speye_21

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Basically the technique to use is the same as which animators use to photograph their cels on an Oxberry system. Best results come from using color balanced lights at 45 degrees from the painting on either side and pumping enough light into the lens to stop it down to f22 or so. Polarizers are helpful as mentioned in an earlier post as they help minimize glare. Oxberry systems usually use 1,000 watt halogen bulbs - 2 per side and far enough from the artwork to not cause pooling. A couple pitfalls to watch out for are shadows along the edges of the painting from the frame, uneven lighting (usually from warped canvas or poor light setup). Not all colors respond equally to light either, so a few test shots might be in order. With the digital world, may not be a bad idea to do bracketting. Finally, as always, strong reds and faint blues are problems.

Posted 3 years ago #
bernard

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Thanks Speye ! The painting is basically yellow and green. Very little reds and a bit of blue. I will do several test shots. I will do without the lamps though. Cost control was the main reason for my question, so these lamps are out of the question. It would be different if I had to do a lot of paintings, but for only one… The weather should be just right this week-end in Paris :o)

Posted 3 years ago #
merlewine

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I believe this has been pretty much covered, but I spent years photographing rock posters, using a vacuum table I built myself that worked with a shop vac to hold the paper flat. The two 45-degree-angle lights, as mentioned by others, is right - all carefully measured. But for the lens, all the copy folks I know only used flat field lenses, like the Nikon 60mm 2.8. I have over a dozen macro lenses, and the Nikon 60mm 2.8 (or a 55mm macro) has worked better (sharper)than the 105 macro or other lenses.

Posted 3 years ago #
soap

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K-mart sells pop-up windshield sun visors for $18 a pair which work great as ghetto reflectors.
Their reflected light is disturbingly untinted.

merlewine brings up a good point - "standard" lenses have a (ever so slightly) spherical field of focus which is not ideally conducive to copystand work.

PS - F22 is tooo tight. Diffraction will make F22 softer than F11.

Last bit of ghetto copystand work I did was outdoors, using a piece of 3/4" MDF bedded in sand as the work table. (Bedding in sand allowed me to work it perfectly level and made it rock-solid) and the camera suspended from my tripod. Since I knew the table was level all I had to do was use a quality torpedo level to ensure the camera was also level (in both axis) to ensure they were parallel. (see recent thread on macro softness for what happens when you're not)

Posted 3 years ago #
mb

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I must add that there is no reason whatsoever to use such a small aperture on such a flat subject.
F/5.6 is quite enough for painting, and if you have very deep frame that you what to be sharp you can go down to f/8 or more depending on the lens you are using.
Best one is the range that your lens gives best results.

Posted 3 years ago #