Taking a picture of a picture

[gmwinder]

My friend has a family portrait and he wants me to take a digital picture of it. The portrait is about 30 x 20. Any suggestions on how to do this...lighting, lens etc. Ultimately he wants to print out some copies at about 24x16 to give to the children in the portrait.

Thanks,

gm

[jngo]

I've never done one that big before. But I'd pin it up on a wall and shot two hotlights on it, one from each side at a 45 degree angle to avoid glare. Make sure the lighting is even, a light meter is invaluable in a situation like this. I'd use a portrait lens (50-85 or so) to limit distortion, but then again that depends on the space you have available to you. Since it's a flat surface, DOF isn't a factor, just make sure you have a sharp focus and shoot the highest resolution possible. One note on using hotlights. They CAN burn the image if they're on for too long. So keep that in mind.

[TroPhoto]

Is it framed behind glass? If so you may have some reflection problems. If had do it with a 46'' softlighter well off to the side but you will be better off with 2 strobes. You could also try doing it with natural light. On the other hand I had good results on a restoration project of and 18'' x 20'' by scanning it in 4 sections and stiching them together in PS. If you cannot shoot straight on and be sqare with the image you will get some paralax distortion that is easily fixrd in PS.

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

Cheers

Craig

[ssim]

Is this a portrait that was taken by another photographer that might still be around?? Maybe they could contact him and he would be willing to sell the negative/digi file.

[Stephie]

I did this a few weeks ago. My family wanted me to put together a slideshow and i wasn't about to scan in 50 photos. I took them with a canon powershot and they turned out nicely. I just made sure that there weren't any glares or washouts of the photos. I took them in a well lit room with large windows, no flash

[kong]

I do this all the time with no problems, I took parts of other responses and made you one that summarizes what I do.

Is it framed behind glass, remove it.
Make sure you have a sharp focus and shoot the highest resolution possible.
Do it with natural light, no glare or shadows to worry about.
If you cannot shoot straight on and be sqare with the image you will get some paralax distortion. I've even put them flat on the ground and shot straight down from above.

good luck,