Flat art shooting set up

I have a family of friends who are artists and need to come up with a semi permanent set-up for making records of their work. In full disclosure, they will be using a D*****l SLR camera but the overall set-up challenges are the same as for any of us, even lighting, keeping the camera square to the canvas and being able to move the camera forward and back to fill the frame. Their canvases may range up to 4' so a vertical set-up would probably be difficult. I'm thinking that a light-duty, rolling camera stand would be a good start
Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Flotsam said:

I'm thinking that a light-duty, rolling camera stand would be a good start
Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

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I actually did a good bit of this when the spouse was in art school. They had to have slides of everything!

Rolling camera stand. Tripod on a dolly. Or, just a tripod. Mark, or use a line of tape on the floor (if possible) at 90 degrees to the wall, and it will greatly simplify set up. As you said, make sure the art is centered to the axis of the lens. With d**** post processing, a bit of this can be corrected, as can the color balance and cropping. I would use two lights at even angles to the piece, and a polarizing filter might help.

I used to shoot flat art for artists, including larger pieces. I used a tripod with a convertible center column, and I also got this T-arm that could be mounted in the place of the tripod head on the column, and the head put on the end of the T-arm. This would allow me to set up and shoot flat art on the floor unless it was very large. I would put two strobes on stands at 45 degree angles from the plane of the artwork, and if the work was not highly reflective, put the strobes in softboxes or umbrellas. If this is going to be a regular activity, they should try to dedicate a space to the setup so it can be kept arranged and ready. Another really good accessory for this process is a bubble level. While any kind of wheeled conveyance for the tripod will make setup faster, I'd stick to the regular tripod feet because it is too easy to roll the stand/tripod past where you meant to in the process of locking it down.

I have done a good bit of this, but have never had the luxury of a rolling camera stand. It's not really that hard to move a tripod back and forth, as long as you are careful to keep it on the centerline axis of the art. The line on the floor is a great idea! A plumb bob attached to the tripod post could help with the alignment.
The item I always wanted, but could never afford, was a geared tripod head from Manfrotto.
A medium range zoom lens could eliminate the need for the roller stand. I have used a 28-105 Nikon with good results. But my favorite lens for doing this work in 35mm is a 105. For 4x5, I prefer a 240mm f9 Apo Artar.

The main concern in flat art shooting is, on my opinion, a perfect parallelity of your subject plane and film (or chip?) plane. It can be easily done using a mirror in a center of your stand for art, or the laser aligning tool. In shooting oil painting, the sheets of Polaroid foil over the lights, together with the polarizer filter over the lens, would help you to get rid of all unwanted reflections and hot spots.

Flotsam said:

I have a family of friends who are artists and need to come up with a semi permanent set-up for making records of their work. In full disclosure, they will be using a D*****l SLR camera but the overall set-up challenges are the same as for any of us, even lighting, keeping the camera square to the canvas and being able to move the camera forward and back to fill the frame. Their canvases may range up to 4' so a vertical set-up would probably be difficult. I'm thinking that a light-duty, rolling camera stand would be a good start
Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

For your friends to read and have hand for reference:

The Artists' Handbook for Photographing Their Own Artwork, John White
How to Photograph Works of Art, Sheldan Collins
Photographing Your Artwork, Russell Hart

The first two are better, with ideas on DIY equipment that works well as well as a run down on standard studio lighting equipment and techniques. Both cover the issues involved nicely, including the quality of light for all kinds of flat and 3-D art.

Lee