R
Rotorbug
Guest
Can anyone offer advice on photographing artwork, in particular, graphite drawings?
Would I need a light cube/tent?
Would I need a light cube/tent?
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apaflo
Senior Member
That might be useful, at least for small drawings.
How about a regular copy stand? The significant advantages are a stable camera platform and perfect camera alignment to keep the sensor/film plane parallel to the drawing. Lighting typically would be from multiple sources on each side of the stand. With digital, due to the ability to quickly review and reshoot, lighting might best be accomlished with two flash units, one at 45 degrees or so on each side and each with a fairly large softbox attached.
For a costless quickie setup, assuming you can do a few perspective adjustments in Photoshop or some other editor, mounting the drawings on an easel illuminated by a large window on a cloudy day works very well. If you get the camera alignment a little off though, it distorts the dimensions and requires post processing.
Larry Berman
Senior Member
Start with two lights at 45 degree angles. I use two oversize white umbrellas with studio strobes. If you want to show the texture move one light closer to the edge so it casts shadows on the surface. If the paper is warm toned, you want to keep the color (white balance) relatively accurate, but if it's white paper, just desaturate afterwards.
Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
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Larry Berman
http://BermanGraphics.com
duckfat
Senior Member
What focal length are you using? I ask because I wonder what impact it has. I tend towards telephoto but I've never compared a photograph of a piece to a direct scan of the same picture. Is a scan effectively a photocopy? Anyhow, I always imagine a wide angle lense would distort the work more.
Also, you might like to experiment with a circular polarizer with something as reflective as graphite.. I say this as I just bought one today and am going to try shooting an oil painting. If the drawings contain dense, heavy shading it might make a difference.
Just thoughts.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/8189967@N04/sets/72157616447984719/
Also, you might like to experiment with a circular polarizer with something as reflective as graphite.. I say this as I just bought one today and am going to try shooting an oil painting. If the drawings contain dense, heavy shading it might make a difference.
Just thoughts.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/8189967@N04/sets/72157616447984719/
tex
Veteran Member
graphite, depending on how heavy it's laid up on the paper, can have tough shine. looks cool in person, but a devil to photograph. you'll just have to play with that a bit. if it's a "normal" graphite line drawing you may not have a big problem, but check all the lines(chimp) to be sure none have "dropped out". if heavy tone is laid up with, like, 9b sticks, then good luck, fella! been there, done that.
whether copy stand or no, the lights should be polarized. you can order/get the gels from theater supply houses, maybe B&H. big help/necessary.
whether copy stand or no, the lights should be polarized. you can order/get the gels from theater supply houses, maybe B&H. big help/necessary.
Genix
Senior Member
So far you've gotten some good replies. I am just going to add to them a bit.
I used to do graphite/charcoal/pencil portraits and drawings to pay part of my way through college years ago. They can be difficult to photograph due to the shine that comes out on the heavier strokes of these materials. Even pencils 2H/2B can cause annoying streaks of reflection.
A copy stand for smaller pieces is one of the best tools you can start with, and lights angled at 45 degrees as a starting point. If the surface is still highly reflective, move the lights closer to the table so that the angle of incidence is greater. This will help knock down some of the reflection. On occasion, it may require you to "lay down" one of the lights relative to the other to knock down the reflection on one side of the drawing.
A polarizer will help, but its not panacea. CPs tend to work best around 90 degrees against the reflection. Since you are working inside the angle of incidence, you will not get the full effect of the polarizer. Using softboxes helps quite a bit, or atleast putting a sheet of paper in front of the bulb, so that you get better diffusion. I use CFL's (GE daylights) and, with regular sheet paper in front of them, it provides quite a bit of diffusion that works to my advantage.
Remember that your subject is going no where in particular, so you can use Mirror-UP, a shutter cable, tripod and long exposure times to your advantage. Even though the medium is "flat", I still shoot at F5.6 to F8 to make sure that I get everything - especially if there is curl to the medium. Several seconds of exposure is not uncommon and I think it works better than faster shutter speeds as the mechanical vibrations settle out long before the exposure is done.
For copy work, I use a 55mm micro, or 60mm AF-D. On Dx that is slight telephoto, but the key here is you want a flat field lens more than "normal" perspective. These two lenses provide that in a much less expensive package than the PC Nikkor's.
Hope that helps...
I used to do graphite/charcoal/pencil portraits and drawings to pay part of my way through college years ago. They can be difficult to photograph due to the shine that comes out on the heavier strokes of these materials. Even pencils 2H/2B can cause annoying streaks of reflection.
A copy stand for smaller pieces is one of the best tools you can start with, and lights angled at 45 degrees as a starting point. If the surface is still highly reflective, move the lights closer to the table so that the angle of incidence is greater. This will help knock down some of the reflection. On occasion, it may require you to "lay down" one of the lights relative to the other to knock down the reflection on one side of the drawing.
A polarizer will help, but its not panacea. CPs tend to work best around 90 degrees against the reflection. Since you are working inside the angle of incidence, you will not get the full effect of the polarizer. Using softboxes helps quite a bit, or atleast putting a sheet of paper in front of the bulb, so that you get better diffusion. I use CFL's (GE daylights) and, with regular sheet paper in front of them, it provides quite a bit of diffusion that works to my advantage.
Remember that your subject is going no where in particular, so you can use Mirror-UP, a shutter cable, tripod and long exposure times to your advantage. Even though the medium is "flat", I still shoot at F5.6 to F8 to make sure that I get everything - especially if there is curl to the medium. Several seconds of exposure is not uncommon and I think it works better than faster shutter speeds as the mechanical vibrations settle out long before the exposure is done.
For copy work, I use a 55mm micro, or 60mm AF-D. On Dx that is slight telephoto, but the key here is you want a flat field lens more than "normal" perspective. These two lenses provide that in a much less expensive package than the PC Nikkor's.
Hope that helps...
Johannes Compaan
New member
I have done some amount of artwork photography, mainly oil paintings, and I have always used natural light, just not direct sunlight of course, and simply shot outdoor. Cloudy days are just perfect. This way you will have no issues with reflexes or color mismatch. Just be careful not to have large objects like buildings or trees interfering in your light distribution or worse, throwing shadow casts on your painting or drawing. Position the art piece on the ground, with just a tiny tilt towards the sky to catch the best light. The tilt angle is dependent on the distance between you and the piece of art, which is dependent on the lens you use as well as the size of the piece. It is a must that your lens is perpendicular to the plane of the piece, not so much because of perspective distortion, since that would be easily correctable in PS, but because of your focal plane. Do keep a nice distance and try to use a slight tele to prevent barrel distortion. Unless you have lenses of a quality level I cannot afford, it may be a good idea to leave some room for cropping in order to have equal sharpness throughout your object. I hope my information may have been of any help to you.
Good luck,
Johannes
Good luck,
Johannes
I really dislike using cross polarization on works on paper. It's somewhat of a personal preference, so I'm not saying cross polarization is wrong. The general consensus where I am is that it deadens the image too much.
For works on paper (graphite, watercolor, prints) we usually use Broncolor Strip Lights on a Tarsia Techincal Industries copy stand. The lights are a bit lower than 45 degrees (I think closer to 37.) I find having strip lights works very well in creating an even light that does not introduce a ton of specular highlights that would otherwise need to be polarized to be removed. The Broncolor strips are rather expensive, but other solutions could be made using a row of 4 lights on each side or using a Strip Bank soft box (make sure not to use asymmetrical stripbanks)
An even cheaper solution that I have used is to go outside on an overcast day, which always worked very well but you're at the mercy of the weather as to when you can shoot. At the time I was living in Rochester, NY which had no shortage of overcast days. Similarly I've seen people who have a small white studio just bounce light off the walls and ceilings, turning their studio into a pseudo integrating sphere/light tent.
Someone brought up lenses. I don't find too much issue between different lenses but we try to avoid wide ones unless we're doing something huge and can't back up far enough. About 80% of the time we use the Hasselblad HC 120 as it's the sharpest of the lenses we have and having a little distance from the object might aid slightly in angle of reflection issues. The majority of the rest of the time we use a standard 80, on rare occasions we'll break out the 35mm but it's mostly reserved for architectural work.
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~Kurt
For works on paper (graphite, watercolor, prints) we usually use Broncolor Strip Lights on a Tarsia Techincal Industries copy stand. The lights are a bit lower than 45 degrees (I think closer to 37.) I find having strip lights works very well in creating an even light that does not introduce a ton of specular highlights that would otherwise need to be polarized to be removed. The Broncolor strips are rather expensive, but other solutions could be made using a row of 4 lights on each side or using a Strip Bank soft box (make sure not to use asymmetrical stripbanks)
An even cheaper solution that I have used is to go outside on an overcast day, which always worked very well but you're at the mercy of the weather as to when you can shoot. At the time I was living in Rochester, NY which had no shortage of overcast days. Similarly I've seen people who have a small white studio just bounce light off the walls and ceilings, turning their studio into a pseudo integrating sphere/light tent.
Someone brought up lenses. I don't find too much issue between different lenses but we try to avoid wide ones unless we're doing something huge and can't back up far enough. About 80% of the time we use the Hasselblad HC 120 as it's the sharpest of the lenses we have and having a little distance from the object might aid slightly in angle of reflection issues. The majority of the rest of the time we use a standard 80, on rare occasions we'll break out the 35mm but it's mostly reserved for architectural work.
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~Kurt
tex
Veteran Member
yeah, i've seen this, but i never thought it was that big a deal, honestly. just photographing artwork deadens it....not sure i think the cross pola. pushes it over the edge, really....
yes....but with certain graphite drawings, as i mentioned, it's not just some errant specular highlihgts, but bigger high gloss areas. it's a special problem of the medium
cough, cough... indeed!
i'm interested in this rig, since these softboxes are set up for flash. i'd like to see what you've got as a roll-your-own solution. i could use it. ever tried a daylight fluor tube in one?
neilcrichton
Well-known member
Years ago, I was asked by an artist to make photos of his work for an art gallery's catalogue for a forthcoming exhibit. His acrylic paintings on canvas ranged in size from about 12 x 14 up to 30 x 40, which way way too big to handle on my copystand. I got some excellent results by taking the paintings into my yard and hanging them on the north wall of my garage. The sky had light hazy clouds, and the wall was in open shade. I set the camera carefully so that the lens axis was perpendicular to the centre of the paintings, and used a polarizer, which got rid of tiny reflections caused by the texture of the canvas and shininess of the paint. Determined exposure with a grey card, and included the grey card in the first shot, for colour control in the darkroom. Even so, I bracketed exposures. I shot on 6x4.5 colour neg film (can't remember what kind). The resulting images reproduced very nicely in the catalogue, and a year or two later, a couple of the photos were blown up to actual size to make posters. In those days, the only polarizers were the linear variety, which I still have and still use, although only with all manual settings. I once did a comparison of linear and circular polarizers, and found the linear ones to be more effective at eliminating glare.
I also remember that the job took a lot longer than I had estimated, because of having to move the camera between each shot. No two paintings were the same size. Turned into an all day project on a chilly spring day.
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My photos on Photobucket:
http://s485.photobucket.com/albums/rr219/neilcrichton/
I also remember that the job took a lot longer than I had estimated, because of having to move the camera between each shot. No two paintings were the same size. Turned into an all day project on a chilly spring day.
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My photos on Photobucket:
http://s485.photobucket.com/albums/rr219/neilcrichton/