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Photography Question 

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How to photograph oil paintings?


I have tried to photograph oil paintings and I always get glare off different brush strokes. I have used natural light as well as tungsten but I always get some glare somewhere in the image. Any ideas on how to capture the realistic image without this distraction would be helpful. (I am thinking about building a black foam core box to set the painting's in)
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
Sincerely,
Stan McMeekin.


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February 10, 2004

 

Wing Wong
  Hi Stan,

Have you tried softboxes? You mentioned you were using tungsten lights. You might try putting some large sheets of waxpaper or vellum about a foot in front of the tungesten light source to diffuse the light. That should soften up the glare you are seeing on the brush strokes of the painting.

Another method would be to have the painting lit from both sides at 45 degress like that used in copy setups. The camera would be directly in front of the painting shooting stright on. Soften/diffuse the light and you should get nice even exposure and minimized glare.

Failing that, you can always go the way of a polzarizing filter to remove some of the relevant glare.

Not sure if putting the painting in a foam core box would help or not. You could put the black foam core as a background for the painting though.

Good luck!

Btw, do you have any example shots with the glare?


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February 11, 2004

 

Robert Bridges
  soft lighting will help. Pros use double polarization gels over the lights.


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February 19, 2004

 

natasha n
  I find a polarizer helps take the glare off anything pretty good.


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February 29, 2004

 

Robert Bridges
  Cross polarization = two polarizing gels on the lights - soft box is for back up.


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February 29, 2004

 
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