Help with photographing framed art
khan...@aol.com
I need help. I'm trying to take pictures of framed art. Problem is,
the glass in the frame reflects whatever's around it so that reflection
gets in the picture I'm taking.
I'll be using a digital camera. Haven't bought one yet, but I went to
the local camera store and tried one out on the art they had in the
store. I think it was the Olympus C2000 that allowed a filter to be
added on. We tried a couple polarizing filters, one that was warm and
one cold. The cold did a better job reducing the reflection (the
lighting was flourescent), but it just reduced it and I need it gone.
Also have tried taking the picture at an angle so at least I'm not in
the reflection. Even propped the picture on a chair and faced it
towards a blank wall, which at least gave a uniform reflection. That
one wasn't so bad, but the art was mounted on a black background that
looked brown with the reflection.
A friend of mine suggested putting non-reflective glass in front of the
picture. Would that work?
I dont' have the luxury of dismantling the frame and removing the
glass. Also, can't have a lot of production. I'll be taking pictures
of art in people's offices so it has to be non-disruptive.
Any ideas?
Martin J.Winfield
<khan...@aol.com> wrote
I think you've got to make a decision regarding quality versus ease of
setup.
I presume that, since you intend to use a digital camera, the latter is of
greatest importance, though ultimately it depends on your application.
The standard method for photographing artwork behind glass is to use
polarising gels over your lights and shoot through another polarising
filter. You need to do this in a dark-ish room so that no stray light gets
reflected off the glass. Unfortunately, the setup requires two diffused
light sources, one each side of the camera, and is therefore intrusive to
the environment in which you intend to be working.
For small pictures, the best compromise is probably to take a piece of black
card , as large as you can handle, cut a small hole in the centre just large
enough for your lens, and simply shoot through thios. You'll have to juggle
the available light so that it's not obviously reflecting , but at least you
won't see your own reflection in the glass!
Who are your clients, by the way? If the artist wants reference shots of
their work, it makes more sense for them to have this done *before* the sale
rather than after. But, if this hasn't been done, due to copyright
considerations it's still up to the artist to negotiate photography with
the purchaser who ought to be prepared to have the pictures removed (if
only to a spare office) for the purpose of photographing them. If,
however, the "owner" of the finished artwork wants copies, you ought to be
aware that a breach of copyright may well result from photographing work
without the artist's consent (All this assumes that the artist is still
alive or is recently deceased according to your local copyright legislation)
Exceptions are usually made where photographs are required for insurance
purposes, etc.
Hope this is of some use.
--
Martin J. Winfield
Herefordshire, UK.
Ed Kirkpatrick
I use a Kodak dc260 to photograph art of all kinds for use on gallery web
pages. I have no trouble with glare using two off camera studio lights and
the double polarizing technique described in this post.
What does give me trouble is that when photgraphing art under glass or shiny
reflective prints, I have great difficulty getting a sharp image. The
camera will focus sharply on 3D pieces so I know the autofocus works, but
with glass or reflective surfaces such as a photograph the image is most
often blurred. The manual focus method fails as well. I have tried placing
a 3D object at the surface, focusing, and shooting with the object then
removed and still get blur. Yes, I am using a tripod.....
Would there be a relationship between subject distance and the focal length
the zoom lenses is set to that might place the depth of field in front or
behind the image surface?
Any thoughts?
Ed Kirkpatrick
Robert Monaghan
--
* Robert Monaghan POB752182 Dallas Tx 75275-2182 rmon...@post.cis.smu.edu *
* Bronica 6x6 medium format: http://www.smu.edu/~rmonagha/bronica.html site *
* Medium Format Cameras: http://www.smu.edu/~rmonagha/mf/index.html megasite*
Robert Molson
pof camera reflections can be solved with a very large piece of black board
or cloth placed directly in front of the cmera.A small opening large enough
for the lens is made. Obviously you need to be using tripod. Lighting it
self is not that much of a problem.Two lights are used one on each side at
angle of 45 degrees. Secondary reflections from background can be helped by
working in a darkened room with only the exposing light source as the main
illumination striking the copy. this is the same principle used with process
cameras. and they always have copy under glass. Give it a try. If you wee
going to replace the glass with non reflective, why bother, shoot the art
with no glass.
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Robert Molson
you can't interrupt any thing, like killing the overhead lights, then I am
stumped. A polarizer won't work, too many angle. most non reflective glass
fepends on a slightly frosted surface, and unless the art is pressed close
to it, it has a tendency to soften or diffuse the image. If it where held in
front of the framned picture you would be shooting through two pieces of
glass and degrading the image even further. The glass in the frame is acting
as a mirror to the camera.'And the only way to get around that is to control
the enviroment. sorry.