@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird great video. what light meter did you use if I may ask? do you think 2x stripboxes would do a good job at lighting a painting? thanks!
@MusicFed my light meter here was a Minolta Flashmeter4, but any light meter that meters flash output would work. As for 2 strip boxes, they would probably work well as long as the artwork isn’t too large. Just set them up on 45-degree angles pointing towards the painting. Good luck!
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird thanks! I am prepping for my first artwork shoot and your video was very helpful. I plan to use 2x godox ad200 with stripboxes - do you think a 33mp camera (sony A7iv) is enough resolution for printed catalogues? thanks!
Reader: If you are looking for a good quick primer on shooting art, THIS is the video; it sets expectations for what you'd need to do and use to shoot fine art really well. Wish I could give two thumbs up. Well-produced and concise. I started shooting art for galleries (mainly oil paintings) not too long ago, and this is the first video that (purely opinion) approaches the subject the right way, and the first where the correct equipment is used for the job. I think making it very clear that this is a technical task, not art in itself, is very critical, and the explanation on copyright is really a base well covered. Awesome!
You should ALWAYS shoot any colour critical art intended for reproduction against a black background to avoid the flare that made your shots ‘overexposed’! Also use a DataColor or Passport system to calibrate your camera sensor to known colour reproduction values before converting raw files to 16bit Adobe RGB master files.
Thanks. I think. Not sure the flare from my walls overexposed the image as it was flagged pretty tightly with the foam core v-flats but you may have a point. Did you see the Gretag MacBeth color checker in there? Or is that not adequate in your opinion? I don't own a Passport System but my screen is calibrated. I have never calibrated a camera sensor as there are very few cameras where you can apply any changes to the RAW file. It’s not like you can load a profile into that D810. And why 16-bit Adobe RGB files? Why not ProPhoto? It's a larger colour space.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Any camera sensor can be corrected to correct reproduction colours using the Passport or DataColor calibration with Lighrtoom etc. we use Fuji GFX and Nikons both of which produce identical colours from a colour chart after 'reproduction calibration'. There are no monitors that can display Pro Photo colours and it's extreme tonal range. All fine art Giclee printers use Adobe RGB and even Ben Q and Dell now produce reasonably priced pro monitors that display 98% of Adobe RGB for 'Soft Proofing' and accurate pre-print critical 'colour-to-colour' adjustments. Mind you we still make a proof from our 10 colour Epson printers for museum jobs.
@@dummatube Thanks for clarifying. I appreciate the response. I just pulled up the final files. Funnily enough the tiffs are 16-bit Adobe RGB. Probably not critically corrected enough but they do print rather well on my P800.
@@dummatube Looking at the X-Rite software and reading a bit... Perhaps I should have said something along the lines of, "There are a number of things you can do to get more critical colour, but they require a lot of work and know-how, let alone expense." This video was supposed to be an overview on thinking about copying artwork as a technical exercise for someone who hadn't done it before rather than a primer on how people at museums or galleries get perfect colour and tone out of artwork. There are enough subjects - CRI, metamerism (which I know is more for printed pieces but different pieces of art will look different under varying light sources) gamut, polarizing, flagging, reflections, etc, etc to do a month-long video and I'm certainly not the guy for that. That said, the next time I'm photographing artwork I'll be even more careful. Thanks for the pointers.
Hi Alastair, awesome video. Question, is that frame block of colours above the painting in some parts of the video to help with colour correction? If so could you please explain how it’s used, looks quite interesting, thank you 🤞
Hi - yes, the blocks of colour are a standard GreTag MacBeth (old school name) Colorchecker. All of the colour blocks are known quantities. Everyone can agree on what they are supposed to look like and because it's universal everyone is keying to the same set of swatches. I use it for neutralizing any casts to middle grey (by clicking on the grey square right above the 'color' in the title at the bottom) but if I wanted to get more fancy I could build a profile for the camera based on that Colorchecker which would (ideally) make all the colours in the painting fall into the exact correct spaces, depending on how the file is viewed, converted to CMYK for printing, shown on a monitor, etc, etc... Then if I were to hand this file off I could include a shot with the Colorchecker and whoever is working on the file next could use the image with the Colorchecker to make sure they were looking at (and outputting) the correct colour. Hope that explains it.
Thanks for posting. I'd like to see a more in depth tutorial type video. What kind of lights are you using and why? What are the basic requirements for the space if you don't have high ceilings?
We do have the 2nd video discussing how to deal with reflections, but to your questions - the lights I'm using are strobe lights (Xenon flash). The reason why is that they're easy to set up and adjust; they throw a nice, consistent light (both in colour and in intensity) and they don't get hot. You could do the same with any type of light, really. The only issue is that whichever light you use, it must have a high CRI in order to be able to reproduce all the colours in the painting. A CRI is (and I'm going to butcher this explanation, I know) basically how much of the visible light wavelength is supplied by the light source. Some inexpensive LED lights, for instance, have gaps in the light they produce and as a consequence any colour in that gap doesn't get reproduced. Technically, the best light to use for reproduction is a tungsten light source, as it has a CRI of 99 or 100 (as in, 100% of the visible spectrum is produced). Drawbacks include they get really hot and they are hard to control - there can be a lot of spill. As for low ceilings - I don't see it as an issue unless they're reflecting in the art or unless they are a different colour enough to cause contamination to the light source.
I am looking for any suggestions or hints. I am just an amateur photographer and shoot everything in Auto modes. For historical preservation, I want to shoot photos of a roll of blueprints of my work that I did in the early days of computer graphics when I was developing programs for piping design. One of the first computer programs to do piping drafting in the Petro Chemical industry. The blueprints are a roll of about 50 sheets of paper 24" x 36" faded white sheets with black lines. I'm thinking of hanging them on the wall and shooting them with my Canon 80D. Using an EFS 60mm lens and two Umbrella Studio lights.
Sounds like you're on the right track. The only issue might be that the camera will want to make those white sheets middle grey and will underexpose them. You might have to go on to Manual mode and see if you can get a good starting point or stay on Program mode and use the exposure compensation to overexpose by a stop or more. You can also bump the power of the studio lights if they're a flash. Blueprints are not easy to shoot, for sure.
Hi, I agree that is the best setup and much better than direct lighting through umbrella or soft-boxes from 45 degree sides+ clamshell from top and bottom. In my dark studio I tried this setup same as you but the light is not bouncing equally to the artwork (specially if it’s in large size) because strobe is circle shape and hitting the center of white flat. Then I tried shooting in large shade of sunny day- afternoon and the result was very good, clear and sharp with well accurate colours and all details; BUT not rich dynamic range as much as shooting in studio with LED. After that I decided to avoid stone flash and use continues LED light. If set from 4 sides, still the center of artwork is not illuminating as sides equally again! Finally, I had to manage my lighting setup by Flexible continuous LED with a unique design. How? With making a LED-wall in parallel of the artwork. In this way I can be sure that my artwork is illuminating by the lighting-wall corner to corner equally. That’s it. What do you think?
Great video! Most of the work I photograph is under glass, and I'm always trying to make my images look more natural. You mentioned, briefly, that placing the lights at 45 degree angles would help with reflections. Any other thoughts?
Yes - you can wrap your camera and tripod in black fabric so it doesn't reflect as well as set up a couple of pieces of foamcore behind the camera to 'reflect' black into the glass - that way you minimize any stray light hitting the glass and reflecting. As well, hands and faces (even if you're dressed head-to-toe in black) will reflect, so a long cable release or shooting remotely so you aren't reflected in the glass will also keep glare down. Reflections can come from the strangest places - it's often hard to track them all down but some good blacks will greatly reduce reflections. That, and a polarizer will often help with glare. Let me know if you need clarification.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird I know this is a year old, but I figured I'd ask -- I haven't tried using a polarizing filter to overcome this yet; do you have any experience with color cast and other problems caused by polarizers while shooting art?
@@forgottencameras I do have some experience with polarizers. First off, they can only do so much in many cases. I have heard of people using 2 polarizers to cross-polarize the light but I have never tried that. Higher quality glass will give you less of a cast. Variable polarizers are notorious for colour casts, (and interference moire) for what that's worth. Finally, get yourself set up polarize as much as you need to and then last thing before you shoot is to do the colour checker to neutralize the light hitting the sensor. That way you can get rid of any casts created by the polarizer, as long as they are constant across the frame.
I think you probably can - my lights are flashes and are, I think, 500 watts each, but they are turned down. You don't need much depth of field. For 75 watt lamps the issue is only that you need to have a solid tripod and a good cable release and to make sure there isn't any stray light coming from other sources that can contaminate the light from your artist's lamps.
Well, if I was printing it via inkjet making sure I had the proper paper type and destination profile would be a start. Really, though, the only way to make sure you are nailing your colours is to have a good conversation with your printer and to do some testing. Ideally you want to be able to compare the print to the original, side by side, in the same light.
My pleasure! The megapixel count doesn't matter too much. It all depends on the size of the print you're making from the images. To be safe I would say 15-20 megapixels, but more is certainly better. What do you have and how large of a print are you planning on making? That said, I expect you can get pretty good results with a smaller number of pixels. I once made a 20x30 inch print from a 9-megapixel file and I was amazed at how well it stood up in the enlargement.
Very helpful video for me. and What cable is the camera and laptop connected to? Is that Hdmi cable? If i buy hdmi cable and using Lightroom, can I check the photo in the lightroom as soon as I take the picture? Or do i need another cable or program? Thank you
The cable is a long USB cable - made by a company called 'Tethertools'. They're hideously expensive but really nice. Any USB cable will do, but the longer you need the more prone they are to problems. Shooting to Lightroom is done via USB. As long as your camera is supported by Lightroom it will capture to it. Google 'Lightroom tethered capture' for details on how to get it all set up. Oh, and do yourself a favour and if you have a card in your camera, make sure it's empty. Otherwise things take forever to get set up.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Hi, THanks for answering! I've checked Tethertools, but it's too expensive for me. so i bought another common data cable and working good! And I have another question. Is opposite side's color of V-FLAT that used at video been as white color? Your videos are being a huge help for me when I photograph of my paintings. I am also considering buying the Macro lense after watching them. Thank you so much!
@@junukseo2689 Hello - glad you found a cable that works! The V-Flats are black on one side and white on the other side - the side that is reflecting the light from the flashes - sorry, I should have mentioned that in the video.
Thanks for this great video and taking the time to respond to people's questions =) I also have a question I'm sorry! My artworks are quite large, and often need to be printed life size eg. 1 x 2 metres. How do you successfully photograph a really large piece needing super high resolution? Would I follow the same 'rules' as taking panorama shots and use one of the nodal sliders? Or do I continue doing what I've been doing and keeping the camera straight on to the painting but moving it across from left to right, then flipping the painting on the wall and doing the same again to stitch 6 or more photos in photoshop... Is there are better way? Thanks.
I think you have figured out the most likely solutions. I would stay away from using a nodal panoramic mindset as given that you're in rather close there might well be some problems with converging lines and maintaining a good depth-of-field. I think moving the camera from left to right on a slider is probably the best way to do it, so the camera stays parallel to the wall at all times. Another way to achieve this is by using a shift lens. You can shoot a top, middle, bottom and then stitch them in Photoshop or Lightroom. If you aren't already, you can flip the camera on its side so you get the long side of the sensor on the short side of the painting, and then stitch from there. As in, you have a painting that is 1x2m and it's horizontally mounted on the wall (2m wide). You set your camera vertically so the long side of the sensor is reading the width of the painting and then shoot a series of images left-to-right using the short side of the sensor and then stitch them all together in post. Hopefully that makes sense. OR, if you want to get really fancy. you can have a shift lens on the camera AND you can move it from side to side. The camera starts on the left side. You shoot a top and bottom shifting the lens and then move the camera to the right, shoot a top and bottom shifting the lens, etc, etc, across the painting. Then you can stitch those images together in post. Ideally, you will only move the camera rather than the painting as it'll be much easier to line everything up in post. Please let me know if you need me to explain that any more. I'll comment on reproduction in another comment.
Next comment is about reproduction. You generally need a 300 dpi file for high resolution reproduction. (dots per inch, even though this is an archaic way of measuring these things) Regardless, 1x2m is 40x80 inches (roughly) or 12,000 by 24,000 dots. In this case they would be pixels. That's a huge file and probably not necessary, although I'm sure people will disagree. First off, Epson printers rasterize at 240 dpi, which means you only need a 9600x19200 file, rather than the bigger one for proper reproduction out of an inkjet printer. Also, the algorithm in Photoshop for upsampling is incredible. I would be comfortable going from 8600 pixels out of a Canon 5DSR or my Fuji GFX 50r, or, even the 7360 pixels from my D810 to whatever file size is required without too much worry. Now, that said, if you have a lot of fine detail in your art it might not reproduce properly or to your standards. Fundamentally, the issue is whether or not you can get the best quality out of stitching together a whole bunch of images (6 or 10 or 12 or more) or the best quality in upsampling the files you capture with fewer images. I would think that a middle-ground would work best. As in, get a clean, well-assembled file using a slider technique and then upsample as needed. Problems arise when you stitch too many images together or get too fancy with your capture. I hope that makes sense. Feel free to ask any more questions. This is a tough one. Copying large-format art properly can be a real challenge.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Thank you so much! I didn't even know sliders existed until now. I think that is EXACTLY what I need! I so appreciate you taking the time to answer thank you. I have been having my work photographed by a super high res art camera by my professional printer, but it's just not practical (or cost effective) to keep doing that all the time. I've just bought a Canon R6 so hopefully with a slider and some stitching the reproductions will be perfect. Thanks again - and Happy New Year! =)
@@katefisher5580 My pleasure! Happy New Year. Oh, also, if you have a printer you work closely with, their pre-press people should be able to give you excellent feedback in terms of what they want and how they want it - so you can give them exactly what fits their needs. You might ask if you can run a couple of tests to get things just right - shoot and stitch a few images and then ask them to take a look and give some feedback. Good Luck!!
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Thank you again! I've just ordered a slider. It's so true - you don't know what you don't know! I have been looking at videos on photographing artwork for YEARS and although there are a million videos on how to photograph smaller artwork that is being printed small, there is nothing about photographing at high resolution for professionally printing large scale. I wish I learned about the existence of sliders years ago! So grateful to you. Thanks again.
This is very helpful to me right now! one question: I only have a Canon L series 24-105 and a Canon 50mm lens for my camera - which of those do you think would the best for this job?
24-105 would be better than the 50mm, I think. That said, only if you have the room to take advantage of the longer end of the zoom range. Up to 50mm, use your 50mm lens - more than 50mm (which is what I would recommend) use the zoom. Ideally not at 105mm but more in the 85mm range. And F8 or F11 and you'll get the maximum out of that lens.
Glass is challenging. In a situation like this it acts like a mirror and reflects everything in front of it - namely the camera, tripod, photographer, room... The most effective way to deal with reflections is to 'reflect' black material of some sort into the glass. Generally, I use black foamcore but I have had good luck with hanging cloth and even wearing black clothes. I have wrapped the tripod in black and made sure my hands and face weren't visible to the glass (long cable release). I should say that this is after the lights go more to the side so that they aren't reflecting in the glass. The rule of, "angle of incidence equals angle of reflection" is especially true when it comes to photographing glass. If you think of it as a mirror it becomes easier to figure out where the reflections are coming from.
What do you set your screen to on your mac? i was using the LCD, then I set it to adboe RGB 1998- but it looks so much warmer. Then i used a calibrating tool- color munki, and it made it look warmer still. I just am not sure what to keep it on, so i can trust the pictures of my drawings (on white paper its tricky art!!)
I have a new M1 MacBook Pro that has a 'photography' setting which is alarmingly close to my calibrated external monitor. I use the i1Display Pro to calibrate my external monitor and I find I often have to try a couple of times to get it right. Ambient room light needs to be very dim and the brightness needs to be close to 120. Not sure If you know how to adjust brightness with the F1 and F2 keys and the (either control or command key) to get micro-adjustments to get the brightness correct. Not sure if I'm making sense here - feel free to ask for clarification. The monitor will always feel a bit strange in comparison to the art because one is transmitted light; the other is reflected light. That said, you do need to get your monitor to the point where you have confidence in how it looks.
What would you recommend to be the best budget camera for shooting artworks and making prints (as big as A3)? Mirrorless or DSLR? Which brands and model?
I would go mirrorless, myself, as that is where the technology is going. I bet pretty much any camera on the market these days is going to have more than enough resolution for an A3 size reproduction. As for brands - they all make excellent cameras. It's hard to find a really bad camera, these days. Without question the most important aspect, though, is the lens - one with at little distortion as possible. If you can, go to a camera store after doing some online sleuthing and see if you can try them out. And make sure you look through the menus, too, as some camera brands (I'm looking at you, Sony) have menu systems that are really hard to figure out.
I'm a fan of Manfrotto (Bogen) stands but there are a number of stands out there that work well, just make sure that they aren't cheap and flimsy. As for lights, you want to stay away from inexpensive LED bulbs as they have a low CRI (which means they don't have all the colour of the spectrum in them and as a consequence you lose some colour in your artwork). For any light source if you can find the CRI, it should be 99 or even 100, if possible. For flash, I'm a fan of Profoto, but I understand Godox are pretty good, too.
Hard to come up with specific numbers, as everyone is different. But things to consider are how long it takes to set up and how many pieces you can do once you're set up. If you set up for one piece and then have to strike your set, the cost per piece is high. If you can set up and shoot 75 pieces, cost per piece is quite a bit lower. I think you need to keep in mind your time, but also your expertise, the equipment you have and the value you can bring to the table. Getting good photos of artwork is hard to do without some knowhow and some experience. An iPhone will only do so well in that situation. Not sure if that's helpful, but that's how I think when I'm pricing things. And then I think about what other people charge - either trades or professionals - and I set my numbers accordingly. Some clients are happy with my pricing. Others look elsewhere. Can't please everyone.
For the light, you will need a program of some sort (Lightroom, Photoshop) where you can sample colours. Generally they are 3 numbers in a row, separated by commas (124,124,124 or something like that) It's a numerical listing of the RGB values at that point. The eyedropper will give you this information. As long as the info is the same for all 4 corners, (or very close) then the light intensity is the same. No light meter required. For the color checker, as long as you have a middle grey you should be all right. I have seen paper true 18% grey cards around for not that much money (a few dollars, I think). The colour checker is handy but by no means essential, but getting a good neutral grey is essential. Going off a white wall won't work because we all know how many different colours of 'white' there can be.
Do you think an A6400 camera would be good enough quality of a camera to shoot artwork ( mine) to be sold as prints? (it’s like 22 or 24 mega pixels but not a full frame camera). I saw you used a sigma lense I think macro 70 or something that is helpful. Does the camera need to be a full frame camera? The newer full frame Sony ones have like 42 or more mega pixels I think, but they are a lot of money!! I just bought this camera to start photography but I am wondering if it will photograph my art too.
I don't see why an APS-C sized sensor wouldn't be adequate. Larger sensors work better from a purely technical point of view, but they also really exceed in low-light situations which we definitely don't have here. As long as you have a good lens and are careful with your exposure and your setup, the file off of an A6400 should be fine. You may run into problems if you want to print a massive print, but for pretty much everything else I think you would be good. Oh, one thing to keep in mind is that you want to fill the frame of the camera as much as possible with the artwork so you don't lose much when you're cropping. Not sure if I said that in the original video. Good luck!
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird thank you so much! I did not really expect to get a reply! I am really glad I got the A6400 then! It’s very expensive to have to pay someone to photograph 10-20 pieces of work!! I just got a piece of mine printed from a photograph I took with a regular point and shoot digital camera and no special lighting or aperture. I had to edit the colors in photoshop though. It is a postcard size print and it a bit blurry and the colors are a bit off but the organization using it still wanted it so -oh well! 😬 But for next time I will know how to do it better! Thank you!!
Nothing too much more, specifically, for Giclèe prints. But I was shooting some more artwork recently and found that putting large black cards on either side of the camera to 'reflect' black into the artwork gave me a bit of a bump in contrast, and made the digital image quite a bit more clean.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Thank you for that. Very useful also. Im taking on my first artwork photoshoot for only 1 painting which is 1m X 1.2m. The image will goes on digital print in the same size. Do you think I can pull off a decent image quality shooting with an Fuji Xt3 which is 26.1mpx? Later on I can invest in a medium format camera but as a start I do not wish to invest a bunch of money until it turns out I will take on more of this type of works. Many thanks
@@bajnoklevente The XT-3 should be fine, but be careful how you process the raw file. Software is much better now when dealing with the X-Trans sensors, but previously you would get some smearing in fine detail in Lightroom. Capture One (better) and Raw Developer (best) can deal with X-trans files really well. That said, I know that Lightroom is much better than it used to be. Not that Lightroom shouldn't be used, just double-check your final file to make sure there isn't anything that shouldn't be there. Good Luck!
Macro lenses do have less distortion but mostly in close. In this case it's probably not essential - I was using the macro lens more because I liked the focal length (70mm) rather than the fact it was a macro lens. The benefit a macro lens can offer only really becomes an issue if you're in really close on a small object. I think a 50mm lens would be the minimum to get a good result for what I'm showing here. 60/70/85/105mm lenses would be better but longer than that tends to get a bit of a challenge to use - you're too far away from the subject.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird thank you for your reply! I saw in another video on this topic somebody else advocating for a macro lens because they tend to be sharper.
Great video and thanks. It's nice to listen to a professional. Quick question please; if you want to get the highest resolution why would you go with 70mm and have the camera a long way back from the painting. Wouldn't it be better to use 50mm and fill the frame?
Glad you liked the video. The reason why I went with the 70mm rather than a 50mm is that I wanted to have as little distortion as possible in the frame. The 50mm is pretty distortion-free, but the 70 is just a little bit longer - and I had room in the studio for it. However, in either case, no matter which lens I use, I would fill the frame with the painting. So the resolution wouldn't change between lenses. The camera would be a little further away with the 70mm, but I would still fill the frame, regardless of the lens. If that makes sense?
The bounce vs soft boxes is so I can get a really even light across the subject - bounce will aways give softer light than direct light. Also, I don't have two identical soft boxes so if I did light with soft boxes the light from each would be slightly different. With the bounce I'm assured that the quality of the light from each side is the same. Same light, same surface it's bouncing into...
@@erikaboxler9565 They are Profoto B1 lights. They're battery-powered strobes. Rather expensive, but they work really well. There are other brands that will also work fine, though.
I'm afraid I'm not well acquainted with the 600d, but I just looked it up and it appears to be a pretty nice camera. I expect that as long as you can manually control it and shoot a raw file, you should be able to get good results.
I think the first thing you should have started with would be _what the final size of the print would be and how many pixels are needed_. Then all the technical stuff you just did.
Pencil can be really tough! It’s often reflective - can you see if you hold up something black beside the camera to reflect some black and add some contrast?
Great video. I shoot this sort of thing all the time and run into exactly the same problem with overexposing the final shots, even after proper metering. Would love to hear from experts on how to letter this properly in order to get the exact exposure without having to eyeball it after the fact.
If you look below there is a back-and-forth that I had with dummatube about best-practices for shooting artwork. His comments about photographing a passport checker and then using it to build a profile would probably take care of some of the issues you are having. His comments build on what we talked about in the video but take them to a much higher and more critical level.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Yes, I do the full color check profile with an xrite card to make sure the colors are accurate. My issue is over exposure even though the metering is correct, based on my meter. The color checker doesn’t have any effect on the exposure, unfortunately.
@@knoxley I was thinking that if you built a custom profile with the Passport then you would be able to set the white, black and mid-tone points for that lighting setup and as a consequence get a closer read on a true exposure, but I guess not. Too bad. Sorry I can't be much more help. Strange how we both ran into the same exposure issue.
The meter is more to get the light even on all 4 corners, rather than measuring it. If you did have your lights set up rather than use a meter you could take an eyedropper measurement off the wall (in your photography program on your computer) and check to see if they are similar. As long as they are pretty close, that's all you need.
Yeah, you're not the first person to suggest that I speak rather quickly. That said, I'm glad you got some value out of the video. Thanks for the comment!
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Sure, this means to get out of my life. If you're superior please accept my request. I didn't need you asking me that honestly, or any invitation to yipyap about being fair I would like you to get out of my life right away.
Because it's a RUclips tutorial rather than a trade how-to video? And most people don't have Capture One or even Lightroom or would even know how to build a calibration file? Consistent light as well as a known middle-grey sample will get you really close without getting supremely technical. Feel free to offer a link to where one can do a camera calibration or to offer points about another way to approach this. There's always lots to learn.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Really? Hard to find a channel with such interaction. Subscribed at least to show my appreciation. Great job! I'm a Sports photographer, but have been in a sort of master degree course and had to go through this type of photography genre. It requires a lot pf knowledge to make it look simple and effective. Cheers
This is the best of all the "how to photograph art" videos, IMO. Well done and thanks!
Our pleasure - thanks for your kind words!
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird great video. what light meter did you use if I may ask? do you think 2x stripboxes would do a good job at lighting a painting? thanks!
@MusicFed my light meter here was a Minolta Flashmeter4, but any light meter that meters flash output would work. As for 2 strip boxes, they would probably work well as long as the artwork isn’t too large. Just set them up on 45-degree angles pointing towards the painting. Good luck!
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird thanks! I am prepping for my first artwork shoot and your video was very helpful. I plan to use 2x godox ad200 with stripboxes - do you think a 33mp camera (sony A7iv) is enough resolution for printed catalogues? thanks!
@MusicFed the Sony will be fine and your setup sounds good. 33 MP is plenty.
Always appreciate a no-nonsense video like this! Super helpful pointers, thank you.
Reader: If you are looking for a good quick primer on shooting art, THIS is the video; it sets expectations for what you'd need to do and use to shoot fine art really well. Wish I could give two thumbs up.
Well-produced and concise. I started shooting art for galleries (mainly oil paintings) not too long ago, and this is the first video that (purely opinion) approaches the subject the right way, and the first where the correct equipment is used for the job. I think making it very clear that this is a technical task, not art in itself, is very critical, and the explanation on copyright is really a base well covered. Awesome!
You should ALWAYS shoot any colour critical art intended for reproduction against a black background to avoid the flare that made your shots ‘overexposed’! Also use a DataColor or Passport system to calibrate your camera sensor to known colour reproduction values before converting raw files to 16bit Adobe RGB master files.
Thanks. I think. Not sure the flare from my walls overexposed the image as it was flagged pretty tightly with the foam core v-flats but you may have a point. Did you see the Gretag MacBeth color checker in there? Or is that not adequate in your opinion? I don't own a Passport System but my screen is calibrated. I have never calibrated a camera sensor as there are very few cameras where you can apply any changes to the RAW file. It’s not like you can load a profile into that D810. And why 16-bit Adobe RGB files? Why not ProPhoto? It's a larger colour space.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Any camera sensor can be corrected to correct reproduction colours using the Passport or DataColor calibration with Lighrtoom etc. we use Fuji GFX and Nikons both of which produce identical colours from a colour chart after 'reproduction calibration'. There are no monitors that can display Pro Photo colours and it's extreme tonal range. All fine art Giclee printers use Adobe RGB and even Ben Q and Dell now produce reasonably priced pro monitors that display 98% of Adobe RGB for 'Soft Proofing' and accurate pre-print critical 'colour-to-colour' adjustments. Mind you we still make a proof from our 10 colour Epson printers for museum jobs.
@@dummatube Thanks for clarifying. I appreciate the response. I just pulled up the final files. Funnily enough the tiffs are 16-bit Adobe RGB. Probably not critically corrected enough but they do print rather well on my P800.
@@dummatube Looking at the X-Rite software and reading a bit... Perhaps I should have said something along the lines of, "There are a number of things you can do to get more critical colour, but they require a lot of work and know-how, let alone expense." This video was supposed to be an overview on thinking about copying artwork as a technical exercise for someone who hadn't done it before rather than a primer on how people at museums or galleries get perfect colour and tone out of artwork. There are enough subjects - CRI, metamerism (which I know is more for printed pieces but different pieces of art will look different under varying light sources) gamut, polarizing, flagging, reflections, etc, etc to do a month-long video and I'm certainly not the guy for that. That said, the next time I'm photographing artwork I'll be even more careful. Thanks for the pointers.
@@dummatube why dont you share what you know on youtube?
The setup is always the most tech fun for sure.
The best video I've seen so far on this topic
Thank you for making this easy to understand 🙏🏼💜
Hi Alastair, awesome video.
Question, is that frame block of colours above the painting in some parts of the video to help with colour correction? If so could you please explain how it’s used, looks quite interesting, thank you 🤞
Hi - yes, the blocks of colour are a standard GreTag MacBeth (old school name) Colorchecker. All of the colour blocks are known quantities. Everyone can agree on what they are supposed to look like and because it's universal everyone is keying to the same set of swatches. I use it for neutralizing any casts to middle grey (by clicking on the grey square right above the 'color' in the title at the bottom) but if I wanted to get more fancy I could build a profile for the camera based on that Colorchecker which would (ideally) make all the colours in the painting fall into the exact correct spaces, depending on how the file is viewed, converted to CMYK for printing, shown on a monitor, etc, etc... Then if I were to hand this file off I could include a shot with the Colorchecker and whoever is working on the file next could use the image with the Colorchecker to make sure they were looking at (and outputting) the correct colour. Hope that explains it.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird perfectly explained, incredible how technical these things can become, thank you!
Thanks for posting. I'd like to see a more in depth tutorial type video. What kind of lights are you using and why? What are the basic requirements for the space if you don't have high ceilings?
We do have the 2nd video discussing how to deal with reflections, but to your questions - the lights I'm using are strobe lights (Xenon flash). The reason why is that they're easy to set up and adjust; they throw a nice, consistent light (both in colour and in intensity) and they don't get hot.
You could do the same with any type of light, really. The only issue is that whichever light you use, it must have a high CRI in order to be able to reproduce all the colours in the painting. A CRI is (and I'm going to butcher this explanation, I know) basically how much of the visible light wavelength is supplied by the light source. Some inexpensive LED lights, for instance, have gaps in the light they produce and as a consequence any colour in that gap doesn't get reproduced.
Technically, the best light to use for reproduction is a tungsten light source, as it has a CRI of 99 or 100 (as in, 100% of the visible spectrum is produced). Drawbacks include they get really hot and they are hard to control - there can be a lot of spill.
As for low ceilings - I don't see it as an issue unless they're reflecting in the art or unless they are a different colour enough to cause contamination to the light source.
The part I worry about the most is getting accurate color. I have to photograph some artwork today. I think it's oil paintings. Should be interesting
I am looking for any suggestions or hints. I am just an amateur photographer and shoot everything in Auto modes. For historical preservation, I want to shoot photos of a roll of blueprints of my work that I did in the early days of computer graphics when I was developing programs for piping design. One of the first computer programs to do piping drafting in the Petro Chemical industry. The blueprints are a roll of about 50 sheets of paper 24" x 36" faded white sheets with black lines. I'm thinking of hanging them on the wall and shooting them with my Canon 80D. Using an EFS 60mm lens and two Umbrella Studio lights.
Sounds like you're on the right track. The only issue might be that the camera will want to make those white sheets middle grey and will underexpose them. You might have to go on to Manual mode and see if you can get a good starting point or stay on Program mode and use the exposure compensation to overexpose by a stop or more. You can also bump the power of the studio lights if they're a flash. Blueprints are not easy to shoot, for sure.
If you do this stuff regulary or if you have a big studio space it's a good idea to invest in a studio stand.
True. As much space as they take up and as heavy and awkward as they can be, a studio stand in this case would certainly make the job a lot easier.
Any suggested models?
Hi, I agree that is the best setup and much better than direct lighting through umbrella or soft-boxes from 45 degree sides+ clamshell from top and bottom. In my dark studio I tried this setup same as you but the light is not bouncing equally to the artwork (specially if it’s in large size) because strobe is circle shape and hitting the center of white flat. Then I tried shooting in large shade of sunny day- afternoon and the result was very good, clear and sharp with well accurate colours and all details; BUT not rich dynamic range as much as shooting in studio with LED. After that I decided to avoid stone flash and use continues LED light. If set from 4 sides, still the center of artwork is not illuminating as sides equally again! Finally, I had to manage my lighting setup by Flexible continuous LED with a unique design. How? With making a LED-wall in parallel of the artwork. In this way I can be sure that my artwork is illuminating by the lighting-wall corner to corner equally. That’s it. What do you think?
very helpful! Which camera did you use for the video recording? Excellent quality.
Thanks for noticing. We used the Nikon Z6.
Great video! Most of the work I photograph is under glass, and I'm always trying to make my images look more natural. You mentioned, briefly, that placing the lights at 45 degree angles would help with reflections. Any other thoughts?
Yes - you can wrap your camera and tripod in black fabric so it doesn't reflect as well as set up a couple of pieces of foamcore behind the camera to 'reflect' black into the glass - that way you minimize any stray light hitting the glass and reflecting. As well, hands and faces (even if you're dressed head-to-toe in black) will reflect, so a long cable release or shooting remotely so you aren't reflected in the glass will also keep glare down. Reflections can come from the strangest places - it's often hard to track them all down but some good blacks will greatly reduce reflections. That, and a polarizer will often help with glare. Let me know if you need clarification.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird I know this is a year old, but I figured I'd ask -- I haven't tried using a polarizing filter to overcome this yet; do you have any experience with color cast and other problems caused by polarizers while shooting art?
@@forgottencameras I do have some experience with polarizers. First off, they can only do so much in many cases. I have heard of people using 2 polarizers to cross-polarize the light but I have never tried that. Higher quality glass will give you less of a cast. Variable polarizers are notorious for colour casts, (and interference moire) for what that's worth. Finally, get yourself set up polarize as much as you need to and then last thing before you shoot is to do the colour checker to neutralize the light hitting the sensor. That way you can get rid of any casts created by the polarizer, as long as they are constant across the frame.
Did I miss the wattage used, or whatever the bulb power is? Can I use 75 watts to achieve good lighting from two basic artists lamps on stands?
I think you probably can - my lights are flashes and are, I think, 500 watts each, but they are turned down. You don't need much depth of field. For 75 watt lamps the issue is only that you need to have a solid tripod and a good cable release and to make sure there isn't any stray light coming from other sources that can contaminate the light from your artist's lamps.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Thank you Alastair.📸
What kind of processing do you do on this photo to prepare it for printing?
Well, if I was printing it via inkjet making sure I had the proper paper type and destination profile would be a start. Really, though, the only way to make sure you are nailing your colours is to have a good conversation with your printer and to do some testing. Ideally you want to be able to compare the print to the original, side by side, in the same light.
Awesome thanks for the video! How many megapixels should the camera be for prints?
My pleasure! The megapixel count doesn't matter too much. It all depends on the size of the print you're making from the images. To be safe I would say 15-20 megapixels, but more is certainly better. What do you have and how large of a print are you planning on making? That said, I expect you can get pretty good results with a smaller number of pixels. I once made a 20x30 inch print from a 9-megapixel file and I was amazed at how well it stood up in the enlargement.
This is awesome tutorial. You can learn a lot from this exercise.
Very helpful video for me. and What cable is the camera and laptop connected to? Is that Hdmi cable?
If i buy hdmi cable and using Lightroom, can I check the photo in the lightroom as soon as I take the picture? Or do i need another cable or program? Thank you
The cable is a long USB cable - made by a company called 'Tethertools'. They're hideously expensive but really nice. Any USB cable will do, but the longer you need the more prone they are to problems. Shooting to Lightroom is done via USB. As long as your camera is supported by Lightroom it will capture to it. Google 'Lightroom tethered capture' for details on how to get it all set up. Oh, and do yourself a favour and if you have a card in your camera, make sure it's empty. Otherwise things take forever to get set up.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Hi, THanks for answering!
I've checked Tethertools, but it's too expensive for me. so i bought another common data cable and working good!
And I have another question. Is opposite side's color of V-FLAT that used at video been as white color?
Your videos are being a huge help for me when I photograph of my paintings. I am also considering buying the Macro lense after watching them. Thank you so much!
@@junukseo2689 Hello - glad you found a cable that works! The V-Flats are black on one side and white on the other side - the side that is reflecting the light from the flashes - sorry, I should have mentioned that in the video.
Thanks for this great video and taking the time to respond to people's questions =) I also have a question I'm sorry! My artworks are quite large, and often need to be printed life size eg. 1 x 2 metres. How do you successfully photograph a really large piece needing super high resolution? Would I follow the same 'rules' as taking panorama shots and use one of the nodal sliders? Or do I continue doing what I've been doing and keeping the camera straight on to the painting but moving it across from left to right, then flipping the painting on the wall and doing the same again to stitch 6 or more photos in photoshop... Is there are better way? Thanks.
I think you have figured out the most likely solutions. I would stay away from using a nodal panoramic mindset as given that you're in rather close there might well be some problems with converging lines and maintaining a good depth-of-field. I think moving the camera from left to right on a slider is probably the best way to do it, so the camera stays parallel to the wall at all times. Another way to achieve this is by using a shift lens. You can shoot a top, middle, bottom and then stitch them in Photoshop or Lightroom. If you aren't already, you can flip the camera on its side so you get the long side of the sensor on the short side of the painting, and then stitch from there. As in, you have a painting that is 1x2m and it's horizontally mounted on the wall (2m wide). You set your camera vertically so the long side of the sensor is reading the width of the painting and then shoot a series of images left-to-right using the short side of the sensor and then stitch them all together in post. Hopefully that makes sense. OR, if you want to get really fancy. you can have a shift lens on the camera AND you can move it from side to side. The camera starts on the left side. You shoot a top and bottom shifting the lens and then move the camera to the right, shoot a top and bottom shifting the lens, etc, etc, across the painting. Then you can stitch those images together in post. Ideally, you will only move the camera rather than the painting as it'll be much easier to line everything up in post. Please let me know if you need me to explain that any more. I'll comment on reproduction in another comment.
Next comment is about reproduction. You generally need a 300 dpi file for high resolution reproduction. (dots per inch, even though this is an archaic way of measuring these things) Regardless, 1x2m is 40x80 inches (roughly) or 12,000 by 24,000 dots. In this case they would be pixels. That's a huge file and probably not necessary, although I'm sure people will disagree. First off, Epson printers rasterize at 240 dpi, which means you only need a 9600x19200 file, rather than the bigger one for proper reproduction out of an inkjet printer. Also, the algorithm in Photoshop for upsampling is incredible. I would be comfortable going from 8600 pixels out of a Canon 5DSR or my Fuji GFX 50r, or, even the 7360 pixels from my D810 to whatever file size is required without too much worry. Now, that said, if you have a lot of fine detail in your art it might not reproduce properly or to your standards. Fundamentally, the issue is whether or not you can get the best quality out of stitching together a whole bunch of images (6 or 10 or 12 or more) or the best quality in upsampling the files you capture with fewer images. I would think that a middle-ground would work best. As in, get a clean, well-assembled file using a slider technique and then upsample as needed. Problems arise when you stitch too many images together or get too fancy with your capture. I hope that makes sense. Feel free to ask any more questions. This is a tough one. Copying large-format art properly can be a real challenge.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Thank you so much! I didn't even know sliders existed until now. I think that is EXACTLY what I need! I so appreciate you taking the time to answer thank you. I have been having my work photographed by a super high res art camera by my professional printer, but it's just not practical (or cost effective) to keep doing that all the time. I've just bought a Canon R6 so hopefully with a slider and some stitching the reproductions will be perfect. Thanks again - and Happy New Year! =)
@@katefisher5580 My pleasure! Happy New Year. Oh, also, if you have a printer you work closely with, their pre-press people should be able to give you excellent feedback in terms of what they want and how they want it - so you can give them exactly what fits their needs. You might ask if you can run a couple of tests to get things just right - shoot and stitch a few images and then ask them to take a look and give some feedback. Good Luck!!
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Thank you again! I've just ordered a slider. It's so true - you don't know what you don't know! I have been looking at videos on photographing artwork for YEARS and although there are a million videos on how to photograph smaller artwork that is being printed small, there is nothing about photographing at high resolution for professionally printing large scale. I wish I learned about the existence of sliders years ago! So grateful to you. Thanks again.
This is very helpful to me right now! one question: I only have a Canon L series 24-105 and a Canon 50mm lens for my camera - which of those do you think would the best for this job?
24-105 would be better than the 50mm, I think. That said, only if you have the room to take advantage of the longer end of the zoom range. Up to 50mm, use your 50mm lens - more than 50mm (which is what I would recommend) use the zoom. Ideally not at 105mm but more in the 85mm range. And F8 or F11 and you'll get the maximum out of that lens.
Excellent video. How do you deal with glass in frame causing reflections?
Glass is challenging. In a situation like this it acts like a mirror and reflects everything in front of it - namely the camera, tripod, photographer, room... The most effective way to deal with reflections is to 'reflect' black material of some sort into the glass. Generally, I use black foamcore but I have had good luck with hanging cloth and even wearing black clothes. I have wrapped the tripod in black and made sure my hands and face weren't visible to the glass (long cable release). I should say that this is after the lights go more to the side so that they aren't reflecting in the glass. The rule of, "angle of incidence equals angle of reflection" is especially true when it comes to photographing glass. If you think of it as a mirror it becomes easier to figure out where the reflections are coming from.
What do you set your screen to on your mac? i was using the LCD, then I set it to adboe RGB 1998- but it looks so much warmer. Then i used a calibrating tool- color munki, and it made it look warmer still. I just am not sure what to keep it on, so i can trust the pictures of my drawings (on white paper its tricky art!!)
I have a new M1 MacBook Pro that has a 'photography' setting which is alarmingly close to my calibrated external monitor. I use the i1Display Pro to calibrate my external monitor and I find I often have to try a couple of times to get it right. Ambient room light needs to be very dim and the brightness needs to be close to 120. Not sure If you know how to adjust brightness with the F1 and F2 keys and the (either control or command key) to get micro-adjustments to get the brightness correct. Not sure if I'm making sense here - feel free to ask for clarification. The monitor will always feel a bit strange in comparison to the art because one is transmitted light; the other is reflected light. That said, you do need to get your monitor to the point where you have confidence in how it looks.
What would you recommend to be the best budget camera for shooting artworks and making prints (as big as A3)? Mirrorless or DSLR? Which brands and model?
I would go mirrorless, myself, as that is where the technology is going. I bet pretty much any camera on the market these days is going to have more than enough resolution for an A3 size reproduction. As for brands - they all make excellent cameras. It's hard to find a really bad camera, these days. Without question the most important aspect, though, is the lens - one with at little distortion as possible. If you can, go to a camera store after doing some online sleuthing and see if you can try them out. And make sure you look through the menus, too, as some camera brands (I'm looking at you, Sony) have menu systems that are really hard to figure out.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Thank you much!
Can you recommend lights and stands?
I'm a fan of Manfrotto (Bogen) stands but there are a number of stands out there that work well, just make sure that they aren't cheap and flimsy. As for lights, you want to stay away from inexpensive LED bulbs as they have a low CRI (which means they don't have all the colour of the spectrum in them and as a consequence you lose some colour in your artwork). For any light source if you can find the CRI, it should be 99 or even 100, if possible. For flash, I'm a fan of Profoto, but I understand Godox are pretty good, too.
How would you go about pricing photographing artwork?
Hard to come up with specific numbers, as everyone is different. But things to consider are how long it takes to set up and how many pieces you can do once you're set up. If you set up for one piece and then have to strike your set, the cost per piece is high. If you can set up and shoot 75 pieces, cost per piece is quite a bit lower.
I think you need to keep in mind your time, but also your expertise, the equipment you have and the value you can bring to the table. Getting good photos of artwork is hard to do without some knowhow and some experience. An iPhone will only do so well in that situation. Not sure if that's helpful, but that's how I think when I'm pricing things. And then I think about what other people charge - either trades or professionals - and I set my numbers accordingly.
Some clients are happy with my pricing. Others look elsewhere. Can't please everyone.
Any tips for when light meter and checker card is no in one’s budget? Or are there ok ones under $100?
For the light, you will need a program of some sort (Lightroom, Photoshop) where you can sample colours. Generally they are 3 numbers in a row, separated by commas (124,124,124 or something like that) It's a numerical listing of the RGB values at that point. The eyedropper will give you this information. As long as the info is the same for all 4 corners, (or very close) then the light intensity is the same. No light meter required. For the color checker, as long as you have a middle grey you should be all right. I have seen paper true 18% grey cards around for not that much money (a few dollars, I think). The colour checker is handy but by no means essential, but getting a good neutral grey is essential. Going off a white wall won't work because we all know how many different colours of 'white' there can be.
Very well made, thanks!
Do you think an A6400 camera would be good enough quality of a camera to shoot artwork ( mine) to be sold as prints? (it’s like 22 or 24 mega pixels but not a full frame camera). I saw you used a sigma lense I think macro 70 or something that is helpful. Does the camera need to be a full frame camera? The newer full frame Sony ones have like 42 or more mega pixels I think, but they are a lot of money!! I just bought this camera to start photography but I am wondering if it will photograph my art too.
I don't see why an APS-C sized sensor wouldn't be adequate. Larger sensors work better from a purely technical point of view, but they also really exceed in low-light situations which we definitely don't have here. As long as you have a good lens and are careful with your exposure and your setup, the file off of an A6400 should be fine. You may run into problems if you want to print a massive print, but for pretty much everything else I think you would be good. Oh, one thing to keep in mind is that you want to fill the frame of the camera as much as possible with the artwork so you don't lose much when you're cropping. Not sure if I said that in the original video. Good luck!
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird thank you so much! I did not really expect to get a reply! I am really glad I got the A6400 then! It’s very expensive to have to pay someone to photograph 10-20 pieces of work!! I just got a piece of mine printed from a photograph I took with a regular point and shoot digital camera and no special lighting or aperture. I had to edit the colors in photoshop though. It is a postcard size print and it a bit blurry and the colors are a bit off but the organization using it still wanted it so -oh well! 😬 But for next time I will know how to do it better! Thank you!!
Another idea is to take the artwork outside in the shade. The problem is how to do the same with glass.
Amazing video thank you for that. Would you implement any special techniques when you shoot for Giclèe prints? I would really appreciate your help.
Nothing too much more, specifically, for Giclèe prints. But I was shooting some more artwork recently and found that putting large black cards on either side of the camera to 'reflect' black into the artwork gave me a bit of a bump in contrast, and made the digital image quite a bit more clean.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Thank you for that. Very useful also. Im taking on my first artwork photoshoot for only 1 painting which is 1m X 1.2m. The image will goes on digital print in the same size. Do you think I can pull off a decent image quality shooting with an Fuji Xt3 which is 26.1mpx? Later on I can invest in a medium format camera but as a start I do not wish to invest a bunch of money until it turns out I will take on more of this type of works. Many thanks
@@bajnoklevente The XT-3 should be fine, but be careful how you process the raw file. Software is much better now when dealing with the X-Trans sensors, but previously you would get some smearing in fine detail in Lightroom. Capture One (better) and Raw Developer (best) can deal with X-trans files really well. That said, I know that Lightroom is much better than it used to be. Not that Lightroom shouldn't be used, just double-check your final file to make sure there isn't anything that shouldn't be there. Good Luck!
May I ask why is a macro lens better? They tend to have less distortion?
Macro lenses do have less distortion but mostly in close. In this case it's probably not essential - I was using the macro lens more because I liked the focal length (70mm) rather than the fact it was a macro lens. The benefit a macro lens can offer only really becomes an issue if you're in really close on a small object. I think a 50mm lens would be the minimum to get a good result for what I'm showing here. 60/70/85/105mm lenses would be better but longer than that tends to get a bit of a challenge to use - you're too far away from the subject.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird thank you for your reply! I saw in another video on this topic somebody else advocating for a macro lens because they tend to be sharper.
Great video and thanks. It's nice to listen to a professional. Quick question please; if you want to get the highest resolution why would you go with 70mm and have the camera a long way back from the painting. Wouldn't it be better to use 50mm and fill the frame?
Glad you liked the video. The reason why I went with the 70mm rather than a 50mm is that I wanted to have as little distortion as possible in the frame. The 50mm is pretty distortion-free, but the 70 is just a little bit longer - and I had room in the studio for it. However, in either case, no matter which lens I use, I would fill the frame with the painting. So the resolution wouldn't change between lenses. The camera would be a little further away with the 70mm, but I would still fill the frame, regardless of the lens. If that makes sense?
Underexposed with Alastair Bird yes, that does make sense and thanks!
Why use the strobe bounce vs soft boxes? Is it because you have ambient lighting? I'm trying to figure this out. Thanks for your help
The bounce vs soft boxes is so I can get a really even light across the subject - bounce will aways give softer light than direct light. Also, I don't have two identical soft boxes so if I did light with soft boxes the light from each would be slightly different. With the bounce I'm assured that the quality of the light from each side is the same. Same light, same surface it's bouncing into...
What are these lights that you are using?
@@erikaboxler9565 They are Profoto B1 lights. They're battery-powered strobes. Rather expensive, but they work really well. There are other brands that will also work fine, though.
Please reply sir. Can I use a canon 600d to get a good result?
I'm afraid I'm not well acquainted with the 600d, but I just looked it up and it appears to be a pretty nice camera. I expect that as long as you can manually control it and shoot a raw file, you should be able to get good results.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird thanks
I think the first thing you should have started with would be _what the final size of the print would be and how many pixels are needed_. Then all the technical stuff you just did.
I'm trying to get my pen and pencil marker piece onto Instagram without too much light or too little light and it's a pain in the ass!!!
Pencil can be really tough! It’s often reflective - can you see if you hold up something black beside the camera to reflect some black and add some contrast?
Great video. I shoot this sort of thing all the time and run into exactly the same problem with overexposing the final shots, even after proper metering. Would love to hear from experts on how to letter this properly in order to get the exact exposure without having to eyeball it after the fact.
If you look below there is a back-and-forth that I had with dummatube about best-practices for shooting artwork. His comments about photographing a passport checker and then using it to build a profile would probably take care of some of the issues you are having. His comments build on what we talked about in the video but take them to a much higher and more critical level.
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Yes, I do the full color check profile with an xrite card to make sure the colors are accurate. My issue is over exposure even though the metering is correct, based on my meter. The color checker doesn’t have any effect on the exposure, unfortunately.
@@knoxley I was thinking that if you built a custom profile with the Passport then you would be able to set the white, black and mid-tone points for that lighting setup and as a consequence get a closer read on a true exposure, but I guess not. Too bad. Sorry I can't be much more help. Strange how we both ran into the same exposure issue.
What tripod are you using here? Seems very stable.
It's a Gitzo carbon-fibre tripod with a Really Right Stuff BH-55 head on it. Cost a fair amount but it has been excellent!
Awesome!
I don't have a light meter, is it really important to meter the light ?
The meter is more to get the light even on all 4 corners, rather than measuring it. If you did have your lights set up rather than use a meter you could take an eyedropper measurement off the wall (in your photography program on your computer) and check to see if they are similar. As long as they are pretty close, that's all you need.
Good info here. I did need to slow the speed of playback in order to have time to absorb.
Yeah, you're not the first person to suggest that I speak rather quickly. That said, I'm glad you got some value out of the video. Thanks for the comment!
Thanks
what software did you use for you to connect your camera and your laptop?
The software in this video is Adobe Lightroom; but I have moved to Capture 1 Pro for tethering. Both do an excellent job.
Grande!! Se ve interesante seria genial si lo hizieras con subtitulos en español, saludos
Aqil Laibi
Comprehensive artist and philosopher
well done
Thanks!
pa no es nuestro y es un tumbao de hamburguesa, ahora bien el video esta del ptssss muy full
So basically you are are on your own painters..painting is starting to feel ez compared to documenting it..×-×
point of break off with you and all connected persons.
Hi Iain - not sure I follow. Can you elaborate?
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Sure, this means to get out of my life. If you're superior please accept my request. I didn't need you asking me that honestly, or any invitation to yipyap about being fair I would like you to get out of my life right away.
why would you pay $100 for a color card then not use it's software to calibrate - scuffed tutorial tbh
Because it's a RUclips tutorial rather than a trade how-to video? And most people don't have Capture One or even Lightroom or would even know how to build a calibration file? Consistent light as well as a known middle-grey sample will get you really close without getting supremely technical. Feel free to offer a link to where one can do a camera calibration or to offer points about another way to approach this. There's always lots to learn.
Is he on coke? My mind is racing after that.
I’m afraid I was completely sober. Do you have any questions I can answer about the content?
Man this looks complicated. 🤦🏾♂️
It is fairly complicated, for sure. Not sure how to simplify it and get great results, though.
man, your dog has NO clue of what you're doing
I know. She's not much for photographing artwork - she's more about action. Balls, sticks, mud...
Very amateurish…
How so?
Hey, Greg Derozier. Thoughts on why it's amateurish?
@@UnderexposedwithAlastairBird Really? Hard to find a channel with such interaction. Subscribed at least to show my appreciation. Great job! I'm a Sports photographer, but have been in a sort of master degree course and had to go through this type of photography genre. It requires a lot pf knowledge to make it look simple and effective. Cheers
Btw the video was said on my Artwork photography playlist for future refrence.
@carlosmozephoto thanks!