Photographing Art? - DPChallenge Forums

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D

05/08/2005 11:33:22 AM · #1

I'm curious if anyone here has any other artistic endeavors outside of photography. Sculpture, painting, design....making models etc.?

If so, do you ever have to take shots of these things?

For starters , I'm having lighting trouble. I can't seem to get all my colors accurate and in this particular case the shine off of my acrylics makes everything look like a mess if things are too bright.

Here's a detail where the the emerald green looks too creamy but everything else is perfect. While I like this overall the rest of the canvas is almost black.

This one has accurate greens which only come out nicely in this dark lighting.

This ones too bright.

Any general thoughts?

Message edited by author 2005-05-08 11:44:51.

petrakka

05/08/2005 11:49:51 AM · #2

id be interested in what people say here too because i have to take pictures of our universitys new art gallery in the alumni union here this week, and im not really sure how to go about it

deapee

Kodak V803

05/08/2005 11:59:07 AM · #3

Maybe it has to do with the Nikon thing -- shoulda got a Canon :-p~ bump for you

RKT

Canon EOS-60D

Sigma 85mm f/1.4 for Canon

05/08/2005 12:01:01 PM · #4

I have had to photograph a ton of my own artwork...besides taking pictures I'm a textiles/fiber/mixed media artist. I highly recommend "Photographing Your Artwork" by Russell Hart and Nan Starr. I goes over everything you will need to know... and transfers well to digital picture taking though written for "old school" cameras...the principles are pretty much the same. I have found this book extremely valuable. Hope that helps : }

Rachel

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

05/08/2005 12:02:17 PM · #5

It looks like on the darker one (with the more accurate green) the predominant lighting was tungsten. On the others, flash predominated, and gave these two shots the blue cast to the greens.
You can certainly correct the color cast in PS, but the curves correction will be rather severe. If you were to reshoot, it, I would recommend shooting it in RAW, and tweaking the color balance later. You've still got to choose how to light it. The tungsten lighting will render it more as you see it, but will result in a lot more noise in the blue channel. A flash with a diffuser would result in a bluer image again, but correctable during conversion to JPEG, and prolly with much less noise than if shot in ambient light.

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

05/08/2005 12:11:59 PM · #6

Actually I shot the darkest with the white balance on sun which sometimes works well indoors if there's a trickle of outside light and the lighter two on tungsten. I dread the flash and avoid it like the plague.

I used btw, a regular tungsten bulb, a full spectrum bulb and the outside light. This sometimes gives me great effect but affects each subjects quite differently.

I'm thinking Softbox or anything that will give me nice wide, consistent, diffusion.

Message edited by author 2005-05-08 12:13:36.

Mick

Canon EOS-5D

05/08/2005 12:37:16 PM · #7

How to Photograph Your Paintings (Digitally)

05/08/2005 03:32:13 PM · #8

I tried just plain sunlight with the WB on cloudy and a white reflector.

Does it look anywhere close to the way a painting might be photographed? Any comments?

timj351

Sony DSC-F707

05/08/2005 04:17:45 PM · #9

The type of light and even coverage of the light is really important. I photograph my art quite often and while color balance issues can be corrected to a degree in your image editor it is very difficult to correct for uneven lighting on your image. Paintings with a 3-dimensional quality to them can be even trickier because you usually want to show a small amount of shadows from the brush strokes and keep it natural looking at the same time. I hve a very simple setup with halogen lighting on both sides of my art. I then try to get some slight directionality from either the top left or top right to emphasize the brush strokes. You will probably want to use a polarizer filter to minimize glare or hot spots. There are even polarized lights for this purpose. Try to work in a very controlled environment that can be repeated for each image. Good mounting board or wall for the art and a tripod are essential. Outside lighting can provide a quick and easy solution but it is not controllable. Wind and other factors can be a problem. Most of my work lately has been either pencil or pastel drawings and for those I am using a drum scanner to scan it. It is a great solution for this type of flat work but it is also pricy and may not be affordable if you are just doing this for fun. I sell prints of my art so the quality of the image capture is paramount. If you ever have your art such as pencil or pastels drum scanned just make sure it is protected with a good spray fixative to prevent any damage to the artwork. I get real nervous when I have a pastel drawing drum scanned but there have been no problems so far and the quality of the scans are incredible.

T

Nikon AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5D

05/08/2005 04:59:05 PM · #10

Thanx Tim

Everything I do is texturized. I even used pastry bags a number of times for effects and finish certain areas of most of my work with a gloss varnish depending on how well the acrylic holds up its shine.

So between flat bachgrounds, odd detailed textures and high glossing I have many elements to combat.

I'm now trying my first RAW processing but can't seem to save the file as anything...there's NO "save as" or even "save" function in any of my three RAW programs. I'm so freakin confused by that....it makes no sense. Pisses me off.

I assume RAW will help with many details that I need to bring out but I'll still work on my lighting.

timj351

Sony DSC-F707

05/08/2005 05:29:25 PM · #11

For RAW files you need to open them up in the RAW converter that came with your D70 and process them from there, like converting them to tiff for further work in your image editor or if you have PS CS with the right RAW profile for your camera you should be able to open the RAW file directly in it. Jpegs can look pretty indistinguishable from RAW even at the detail level but it is the wider color gamut of RAW that I think would be the most beneficial reason to use it. With this kind of work it just makes sense to use the very best quality that your camera provides since file sizes aren't really an issue.

T

mcrael

Nikon D300

05/09/2005 04:01:25 PM · #12

Have you tried using a grey card (or white card) and the custom white balance setting on your camera (if your camera has this)? I recently tried this while doing a closeup photo of a baby's face, and was amazed at the results. (I recently had problems with photographing my own framed photography prints, and I wish I had tried the grey/white card and custom white balance on the camera).