How to take pics of paintings?

[rzozaya1969]

I don't know if what I want is too hard for a begginer, or it's just something that needs to be done using trial and error.

A cousin of mine is a painter, and she would like to have a website with some of her paintings, and see if a buyer would be intrested in one, or just to publish them on the web.

I'm asuming that I need a tripod, but what equipment should I have, and how should I set up the painting and camera?

Any help would be apreciated. thanks.

[Skyman]

in a perfect world, a nice big copy stand. this is essentially a flat table to lay the artwork on with a column above it to move the camera mount up and down on, so the camera remains perpendicular to the artwork. most copy stands then have 2 arms coming out along the sides so you can position 2 lights or strobes at exactly 45 degrees to the artwork. for highly reflective artworks such as icons where there is much gold paint polarisers can be used on the lights and a third polariser on the lens to you get perfect illumination. on the cheap however a soft light source such as open shade or diffuse window light and a way to get the camera perpendicular to the artwork so a tripod with a horizontal arm on it or something similar should do the trick. I like to cover a clothes line with white sheet to give me the shade I need when the weather is not helping.

[drg]

A copy stand setup is one way.

Indirect and diffused even light is one real key. Softboxes are probably the best solution in the real world.

I am not a proponent of polarization for this kind of work. Two or more matched polarizers larger enough to change the light at the source are 'Very Costly'. Polarizers on the lens aren't usually necessary with properly diffused light. If making your own reflectors for a copy stand, cut them both from the same piece of board, material, etc.

With digital of cource custom white balancing.

When shooting digital use a color target just outside of the boundary of the painting to get the tonality right. Calibration will make the process work. Spot meter across the face of the painting to get no more than 1/2 stop difference at any point on the painting. Anything much larger than a .25 meter square use at least a 100mm focal length in 35mm format. Do not use a wide angle unless it is an Aspherical Corrected lens. They will distort.

like to use 150 or 180mm macro lens to flatten the whole image even more. Usually f8 or f11 depending on the sweet spot of the lens. Higher f-stops may introduce artifacts and contrast issues that are not desirable. (When starting with a 2.8 lens of course)

Most insurance work will require a lens calibration or 'known' lens.

The plane of your camera's sensor/film need to be in the same plane as the painting, ergo what a stand does. This can still be acheived with levels and/or plumb lines.

Continuous lighting usually is the best solution to make this all easier. The Real Daylight or True Color fluorescents now available in the non-flicker variety (they have a transformer that operates differently than a traditional solid state ballast system) are the ticket. Cool even lighting and the color temp doesn't change outside of range after they stabilize. Tungsten lamps keep changing color the longer they run.


All that being said, for a web site, nice sunny day, bright room with reflected light off a neutral colored wall, set the white balance on the camera and shoot away!!

With even a modern digital p/s you'll have all the quality you need for the web!

Good luck and we hope to see some examples!

Feel free to pm me on this is you would like. I've shot a fair number of works both installed and for documentary work.

[another view]

The plane of your camera's sensor/film need to be in the same plane as the painting, ergo what a stand does. This can still be acheived with levels and/or plumb lines.

Agreed - the camera needs to be in the dead center of the piece or you'll have perspective distortion. I've photographed navigational charts for use on kayak trips by taping them to the wall and mounting the camera on a tripod, then using a hot-shoe mounted bubble level to make sure the camera was level in all directions. If I needed to change what area of the chart was in the shot, I moved the tripod up or down, left or right. This worked pretty well but wasn't perfect; those tiny bubble levels don't allow for 100% accuracy. If you looked close you could tell that lines that were supposed to be parallel weren't quite perfect. It was "good enough" in our case, but spend the time to get it as square and centered as you possibly can.