What is the best lens for Fine Art Photography

Hey everyone,

I recently bought the 400D and think it's an awesome bit of kit.

I have the kit len and I aim to use the camera for 70% documentation of my work ( fine art paintings ) and 30% photo reseach of subjects for my painting.

I love the high res images but they appear a little soft as they are mostly taken indoors under a combination of northern and florescent light. As this is my first DSLR I guess I'm still learning, but, would I benefit with a specialist lens for taking images of my paintings. Not sure what to look for so any advice help would be great.

I have used a tripod with autofocus and manual focus but cannot seem to get really sharp images.

Chris

wide angle. min of 15MM (1.6X crop factor is on the 400D

Use bounce flash (ceiling if possible) with a card facing the art.
Or use a softbox to spread the flash as much as possible

You will have to use a flash to get a crisp and clear image, if you do not want to use flash then highISO - 1/60 shutter minmum, also go threw each colour setting so you can view them all later and get the colour dead on. Its digital so take as many as you can!

natural lighting can be quite neat







--
350D (black w/grip)
17-40 F/4L ~ 20MM Sigma F1.8 ~ 70-200 F/4L
http://www.kanadianiceman.tk ~ http://www.MRSI.tk

The Canon 50mm f1.8 lens is very good optically and very cheap, but the AoV (Angle of View) from the lens is 26 degrees. So if you do a bit of geometry you'll be able to figure out how far back you need to stand to fit your largest paintings in.

If you don't have enough room to use a 50mm lens then you might want to work out if the 24mm or 28mm lens (both still reasonably cheap with good optics). There are AoV calculators on the net. But seeing as your conditions are so controlled i.e. in a studio I would think that a fixed length lens would be the best option as they should give the best image quality.

Seeya,
Finn.

farrellart said:

Hey everyone,

I recently bought the 400D and think it's an awesome bit of kit.

I have the kit len and I aim to use the camera for 70%
documentation of my work ( fine art paintings ) and 30% photo
reseach of subjects for my painting.

I love the high res images but they appear a little soft as they
are mostly taken indoors under a combination of northern and
florescent light. As this is my first DSLR I guess I'm still
learning, but, would I benefit with a specialist lens for taking
images of my paintings. Not sure what to look for so any advice
help would be great.

I have used a tripod with autofocus and manual focus but cannot
seem to get really sharp images.

Chris

Click to expand...

After trying several cameras, lens and lighting for duplication of fine art I came up with the following solution. USE a scannerattached to your computer.

Build a frame to support a piece of glass leaving room underneath for a scanner. place painting face down on glass and slide scanner in a grid pattern underneath and scan in sections. A standard scanner will give you 300dpi , supply its own lighting and the optics do not suffer from depth of field problems or distortion problems. Stitch them all together and you will have a digital file that you can make additional prints of your fine art and also keep a good record for yourself after the original is sold.

Don't forget to also scan a color chart so you can color correct your final image. Another hint, let your scanner warm up properly by doing several trial scans so that when you are ready all scans will have the same color correction. I have used this technique to reproduce fine art for local artists and also printed them on canvas up to 44" wide. With a little tweaking and sharpening , you can get them to look better than original but still authourized by the artist.

This separates the problem of fine art duplication from subject photography. If you are new to dslr photography you will find that Post processing is most useful to sharpen and bring out the colors. Use a copy of Photo shop or elements..... Hope this will help
Gerry
.

farrellart said:

Hey everyone,

I recently bought the 400D and think it's an awesome bit of kit.

I have the kit len and I aim to use the camera for 70%
documentation of my work ( fine art paintings ) and 30% photo
reseach of subjects for my painting.

I love the high res images but they appear a little soft as they
are mostly taken indoors under a combination of northern and
florescent light. As this is my first DSLR I guess I'm still
learning, but, would I benefit with a specialist lens for taking
images of my paintings. Not sure what to look for so any advice
help would be great.

I have used a tripod with autofocus and manual focus but cannot
seem to get really sharp images.

Chris

Click to expand...

Thanks for your help.

I think the scanning option will work for the smaller works but I sometimes paint upto 8 metres long so that would be difficult to scan.

I think I need to brush up on my technique. I know Photoshop really well but, I like to have the best quality images first before I start post processing.

Chris

wrap around the painting on 2 pieces of cylindrical drums (Surely as the diameter of drum gets bigger, the less damage to the painting occurs). As I would take photo of part, I would move the picture from one drum to the other by warpping around and take the whole paint in pieces (you told 8m long of paints). Than I would combine all pictures with Photostitch software (Which is free with the camera; many people use that to make panorama landscape photos). If I would need to remove optical defects, I would use DXO software or similar. But if you use a macro lens (like 50mm 2.5 for shorter focal length), barrel distortion is negligibly small (almost none to worry). Of course those drums having painting on them have to be fixed very well on the wall or a fixture (a metal frame) and you have to use a good tripod

I was scanning works of art usually largest dimension was 3 feet and sometimes I had to also move painting as well as scanner. The paintings were meant to hang in a persons home which tends to limit the size. One of the nice things with a digital copy is you are not limited to the print size.

I have successfully captured paintings on the side of buildings up to 15 meters long using a tripod and photographing sections. The resultant prints were a much smaller scale and quite obviously not detailed enough to capture brush marks as well as a scanner . The customers were happy.

farrellart said:

Thanks for your help.

I think the scanning option will work for the smaller works but I
sometimes paint upto 8 metres long so that would be difficult to
scan.

I think I need to brush up on my technique. I know Photoshop really
well but, I like to have the best quality images first before I
start post processing.

Chris

Click to expand...