Jorge, why is a polarized light source expensive? I put a polarizer gel over my Speedotron flash heads, and I've had no problems.
Jorge, why is a polarized light source expensive? I put a polarizer gel over my Speedotron flash heads, and I've had no problems.
"It's the way to educate your eyes. Stare. Pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long." - Walker Evans
I dont know how much the gels are Brian, but not everybody has them. To buy them just for this job will be expensive.
How big are the originals? If they're small enough, just scan the originals on a flatbed scanner.
Scanners that can handle 8.5x14 reflective media are inexpensive. Scanners that can do tabloid size (12x17) are fairly common and inexpensive relative to the costs you're being quoted per piece.
That would let you skip the film/camera step entirely.
BTW, 19" wide Rosco polarizing gel costs something like 25-30 bucks a running foot, last time I looked.
Hello Samuel;
My daughter studied painting and printmaking in college. In her senior year I photographed her portfolio.
My approach was to hang the work on a wall, and use two lights. The lights are placed at 45 degree angles tothe art work. I rented a stobe set, but hot lights will do. I believe the stobes will be more consistent, and the modeling lights allow you to make sure the art work is adequately covered. Take flash meter readings at the center and 4 corners of the art work to make sure the lighting is the same over the entire piece. I placed a Kodak color chart in the frame just below the art work so, if necessary, color could be corrected.
I placed polarizer gels over the lights and adjusted them to reduce the glare. Your camera should be mounted on a tripod, and leveled. You want the camera and art work as parallel as possible.
I believe 35mm slides are the standard for showing work to galleries, etc; and keeping a record of ones work. You would want to use the best quality film, and have it processed with a custom lab accustomed to doing work for artists. If you live near an art school or college with a serious art program, someone on the faculty should be able to provide you some assistance. Unless you have some special need, I don't believe you need to use large format.
A Roscoe pol gel is about $25 for a 19 inch. Depending on the set up you might just need a couple, you might need a lot more. It all depends on the art work and lighting required.
BTW Samuel, you can have the scans done, have them give you the CD or CDs, buy a CD burner for $60 and make your own, you dont need to pay those guys $10 bucks each.
Samuel,
I think I agree with Jorge, that if you don't have a lot of previous experience photographing this type of items (flat artwork), you are likely to be disappointed with the results. The lighting will be extremely important. It sounds like you are wanting to produce something that looks very professional for sale, and you are likely to spend a lot of time an money in trying to get the quality you desire.
My father was a water color painter and got into what you describe in a completely different way. He painted "theme" type paintings - a lot of boats and ships and such. He found that there was a big market for things like that for professional posters and calendars. He didn't want to deal with all the production work himself, so he found a dealer who produced such commercial work, and they worked out a deal together. He provided the master painting for the other person to use, and was given in return 15 - 20 full size lithograph copies of the master painting for his own use. All this was done at no cost to my father, so he got all the lithographs for free.
If you are expecting "professional" caliber images as the final result for sale as "pieces of art", I would recommend that you re-consider the avenue of having them done professionally by someone else. If you are considering selling them as "sidewalk" art posters at your local arts and crafts show, then doing them yourself might probably work just fine. The real question is what are your expectations of the final product.
I agree with Jorge on the lighting issue. It's annoying tricky to get right. I used to help a friend who did this kind of commercial work a lot. He had a full set of strobes, filters, etc., used 4x5 and polaroid, and I was always startled by how much work it took to get these trannies to actually look like the paintings.
Color was a big issue. We once had to do a whole shoot over (of a huge, hideous oil painting) because of some kind of reciprocity issue from the strobes that led to a color shift.
I'm not saying don't do it, but be prepared for a real learning curve, and to spend a fair amount of money on film and processing while you're figuring it all out.
Samuel, if you can give us a little info about where you're located, someone around here with more experience than you might be close enough to offer to look at the work and provide a little more direct guidance. Off the cuff, for copy work of this type, a press camera with a good lens and a pair of good quality floods is all alot of folks use; the press camera could be used with 4x5 sheet film or 120 roll film to produce 6x7 or 6x9 transparancies; the trick is to hang the original so that it is square against the wall (use wood spacers between the work and the wall at the bottom as necessary) and to get the camera back perfectly parallel to the work. The floods are placed at 45 degree angles to the work and far enough back to cover the whole work evenly (strobes are used the same way). You won't need alot of perspective controll movements for this type of copying. For producing good prints in the same size that you indicated the originals are, you will probably be best off using a slow fine-grain transparancy material as was mentioned earlier and I would tend toward 4x5 material rather than roll film. Good luck with the project, but take care, buying a 4x5 press camera has a way of leading to many more expensive purchases! :-)
The lighting issue goes away "if" you have an area outdoors to shoot. We have done picture/painting repros, and out in the driveway under "natural" light conditions have rendered the best colour balances. They were shot with a 5x7 agfa studio that was purchased for around 30 bucks, an ilex studio lens set on bulb, shot on fuji film, and could be blown up as large as you wanted without loss of detail or colour. Time and patience are the two biggest costs. The rest is trial and error.
I did this for my neighbors and got good results, results that pleased them. Here's what we did. I'm not an expert at this, so perhaps others my also make suggestions.
>> I don't know what copy people do, but I prefer using incandescent lighting with a tungston based film. I like the colors better. I used Kodak type T transparency film. It tends to be fairly close to the stated ASA. Use 4x5 film. They're too many issues with 8x10 for a non-professional. They're expensive, they have to be professionally scanned, unless you have an 8x10 scanner. Check out the film specs at the manufacturers site. Don't make your exposures too long, if you can help it. This can result in a color shift. Stay within the guidelines.
>> You might try using a G-Claron lens, like a 150mm. These are designed for macro type work, and yet they also work for landscape when stopped down. If you don't yet have LF lenses, this would be a good option. Or, some other G-Claron focal length like 180, 210, 240, etc. I have a 150mm Symmar-S lens. The lens elements in my Symmar-S shutter can be swapped for those in a 150mm Componon-S enlarging that I have and used for this project. My results were really sharp using the enlarging lens. I would stick to about f16 or f22 apertures. Don't go beyond f22 (smaller apertures). Most modern lenses are diffraction limited at about f22.
>> I used Lowel DP lights, although I think that Lowel Tota lights or Dynalights would also work. They're less expensive. For an inexpensive solution, you could try the flood lights that one can purchase in photo stores. If you get the blue ones, use daylight corrected film. To increase light output, you could get a couple of reflectors for these bulbs. Smith-Victor lights might also be a possibility. They're lenss expenive than Lowel lights.
>> Put your lights at about 45 degrees from the painting, centered with respect to the painting. I took light readings using an incident meter. Bracket! I'd use about half-stop intervals. That way you're at least within a quarter stop of optimum. It's expensive with 4x5 film, but less expensive than going to a professional. If you have more than one painting to do, do one and have them developed at the best local professional lab. For the same setup, this will give you an idea of an exposure that works. Once you have that, bracket two half-stops above and below on subsequent paintings. You might be able to get away with bracketing one half-stop above and below. But, leave your setup so that you can come back and take another exposure if you need to.
Another approach is to take three exposures at the "optimum" aperture (after testing with your first painting), process one, and then push/pull in sequence the remaining two until you get the result you want. Work with your lab on how much to push or pull.
>>If you plan to scan, or get a professional scan made, color manage your monitor before making any adjustments. If you make adjustments based on the scanned transparency, use standardized lighting to view the transparency. 5000K is typical.
>> Any camera will work, as long as the movements can be set to neutral. Check your camera with a level every which way. You don't want distortion in the image of your subject painting. Consider your photographing needs as well as your duplication needs when choosing. The older Calumet brands are less expensive and would work. If you can, use some sort of lens shade when you take the photos, you'll get better results.
I suspect you might get better results from a professional who really knows what he or she is doing. But doing the above, we obtained good results that pleased the artist.
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