Beginners copy lights

I need to photograph alot of coloured artwork. In the past I've tried similar tasks and the lighting has always been lobsided, so I assume I'll need two lights.
Can anyone recommend a fairly cheap lighting system, bulbs, method, etc.

At a later stage I'll also need to photograph mounted art - behind glass. There are too many to take each out of their frame. I see reflections as a major problem.

Advice gratefully received.

Jim

Hi Jim, when I have copied artwork ( non professionally ) I have used two lamps or strobes at 45 deg. angle on each side of camera. The strobe or electronic flash will give a balanced daylight color temp. for daylight color film. The glass will be tricky,take a Polaroid pic or d----l cam. to check for glare and even light spread. My be a polarize filter would help. Use a tripod if you can. Good luck.

Mike

I (definitely non-pro) have used tungsten film and quartz halogen work lights to do this. Generally the wire guard on the lights needs to be removed to avoid slight shadow patterns. The down sides are 1) The selection of tungsten films is minuscule, 2) the lights get hot as hell.

Glass over a painting is not a problem if, as mike_c says, you use two lights off to the sides. The problem areas are the camera itself (or chrome tripod hardware) reflected in the glass and/or the rough textures of paintings done in oil or acrylic that have a shiny varnish surface. The latter is a problem with or without glass. I shoot with the camera lens poked through a slit in a large piece of dark fabric hung from a background stand. A polarizer on the lens may help some with the rough painting texture problem, but the ideal is polarizers on the lights and the camera. The cost of polarizing material can make this an expensive proposition.

I currently use four modest size softboxes with rather hefty 5500º "compact" fluorescents for light, using daylight film (or often, the technology that shall not be named ...) Since my work is usually low resolution for website use, I'm generally able to get by without cross polarizers. If we were talking fine art repro, well then there would be more work and $$$$ involved!

Not sure where they are, but there have been some other threads on this topic.

DaveT

Glass is very difficult. More difficult is when parts of the painting contain mirror like Gold Leaf and large areas of Black.

I shoot Reverse Glass Paintings on a regular basis and it’s a real challenge. Sometimes a light tent helps if it’s small and does not have any or a lot of Black paint and or Gold Leaf.

The best way I have found work in a very dark room, angle the lights at a 30 to 45 degree. I use studio strobes with modeling lights, and then back the camera away a distance away from the painting by using a telephoto lens.

The reason is to get the camera reflection out of the picture and or get the camera reflection in a part of the picture that doesn’t show.

Note! I tried polarized filters on the camera and it did not do enough. Perhaps polarized gels on the lights would help but it is an expensive experiment for me that I choose not to follow.

Examples: http://www.ReverseGlassPainting.com/

Thanks for the feedback everyone.
I'll investigate proper lighting/strobes, and get hold of some black fabric to hide behind, and Bob's my uncle.
Interesting information about textured painting - I think I'm dealing mostly with watercolour and pencil.
thanks again

Jim

I used to do a lot of copying of photos from books for teaching (pre-scanning and powerpoint days). If you have a lot of work to do it is worthwhile to invest some money and labor in creating a setup that minimizes having to re-shoot the artwork, and the handling that requires. I used two Vivitar HV285 strobes with wide angle adapters, one with an inexpensive slave trigger, two polarizing gels for the lights, and a polarizer for the camera. I made some lightstands out of angle iron and clamps of various kinds. The strobes were bought used on ebay. Polarization makes a big difference in how the images look, particularly with reflective subjects.

copying

Copying

I was a graphic arts camera man for over 40 years and oddly enough reflection from the camera was never a problem and some of them were gray and not black Course the copy board glass was thick plate glass, maybe that had something to do with it .If we wanted the brush marks of a painting to show up we mounted it in front of the glass not under it Then skimmed one set of lights off to the side to pick up the texture and messed with the other bank of lights getting everything even. Very scientific,.. if it looked good on the ground glass and a hand held meter ( borrowed) showed the painting was evenly illuminated we shot it!
.But when I copied all of my late wife’s art work at home I used two quartz lights at 45 degrees and had to cut a small hole for the camera lens in a large piece of black mounting board to shoot through, to cut out any reflections .Worked fine.