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Photographing red paintings with a digital camera
I sell paintings on eBay so need to take reasonably photos of them.
But I'm having real trouble getting decent photographs of paintings that are predominantly red, with my digital camera. They come out reasonably well if I capture them by diffuse bright daylight, but I recently move to an art studio which doesn't have great natural light. I invested in a couple of halogen 500W lights but the contrast in the photos tends to be very poor - details which are clearly visible to the eye just barely show up. It really seems to be more of a problem with red paintings than others. Any ideas where I'm going wrong? Is there some kind of low-cost lighting that would be better than flash or halogen lamps? |
#3
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Photographing red paintings with a digital camera
On Tuesday 24 February 2004 02:22 am, John Purcell wrote:
I sell paintings on eBay so need to take reasonably photos of them. But I'm having real trouble getting decent photographs of paintings that are predominantly red, with my digital camera. They come out reasonably well if I capture them by diffuse bright daylight, but I recently move to an art studio which doesn't have great natural light. I invested in a couple of halogen 500W lights but the contrast in the photos tends to be very poor - details which are clearly visible to the eye just barely show up. It really seems to be more of a problem with red paintings than others. Any ideas where I'm going wrong? Is there some kind of low-cost lighting that would be better than flash or halogen lamps? Have you (or even can you) set the White Balance of your camera from AUTO to TUNGSTEN? Halogen lamps as well as most any filament lamp have a different color spectrum than daylight: much more red and yellow. Auto White Balance depends on having a variety of colors, plus black and white, to work properly. If you have a scene where on color predominates like your mostly red paintings , then the white balance gets "confused" and makes a mistake in the color balance. In your situation it is better to set the White Balance manually, depending on the predominate light source. If your camera can "lock" the Auto White Balance once a reading has been taken, then hold a large white poster card in fron of your paintings, take a reading, "lock" the White Balance, remove the card, and take the picture. The other solution is to get an 80A filter and put it on or hold it in front of your camera lens. This will adjust the spectrum of the halogen light to get close to standard daylight. Or you can get light balancing filters from a movie or theatrical lighting supply house to put over your lights. Rosco Industries (www.rosco.com) or Lee Filters (www.leefilters.com) are two companies that make them. For Rosco, you want Cinegel #3202 Full Blue (CTB). -- Stefan Patric |
#4
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Photographing red paintings with a digital camera
On 24 Feb 2004 02:22:16 -0800, (John Purcell)
wrote: Any ideas where I'm going wrong? Is there some kind of low-cost lighting that would be better than flash or halogen lamps? I suppose you are putting the pictures on the WEB to show prospective customers, so the color veracity is going to be a problem exasperated by the monitor and conditions of the person viewing the images on his own computer. Given this you could probably give more of an idea of the "spirit" of the paintings by buying Paint Shop Pro or equivalent and playing with the contrast, brightness hue etc. settings. It is probably a cheaper alternative to buying more lights lenses or digital camera. Remember that images for the WEB are of pretty low quality because they have to be small in pixel and byte terms. Just an idea.... -- http://www.ransen.com/ Repligator - Easy graphics effects Gliftic - Easy decorative tilings |
#5
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Photographing red paintings with a digital camera
Thanks for your replies - my camera is pretty low-tech, so all I can
do is set the white balance to 'lightbulb', which doesn't help. Sounds like filters may be the way to go. |
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