LIGHTING TO USE SHOOTING PAINTINGS!

ill be shooting some paintings this week and id like to know some advises about that surto of lighting to use or things to consider.

Thanks.

For best results get a couple polarizing screens for your light source. A copystand is always the best way to go unless you cant take the painting off the wall. A few details about what your shooting would help.

vraspagraphix wrote in post #12712314
For best results get a couple polarizing screens for your light source. A copystand is always the best way to go unless you cant take the painting off the wall. A few details about what your shooting would help.

well im kinda short when it comes to equipment, i only have a CPL lol :P and yes ill be able to take the paintings off the wall, most of them are oil paintings, i could use 2 light sources with softbox's

Shooting artwork(paintings)

And since you used a descriptive title & are "Search challenged", look at the links at the very bottom left hand corner of this page.

For lighting, just bounce two speedlights off a white ceiling, one on either side of the painting and slightly in front of it. You don't want any mixed lighting, so put your shutter speed at max sync and close down aperture to kill the ambient light. Then adjust ISO and flash output to property expose the artwork. Use a CPL to reduce some of the reflections that can occur off the painting. Also, a gray card can be helpful to make sure you get accurate color representation.

Are flashes allowed? Some places/museums may not allow them.

Try to shoot with just ambient light. Your 50mm 1.8 may be good for this.

Yes, ill be able to use flashes, and im doing those photos at work so ill be using a 7d, at work i have a 11-16 tokina, 70-200 f4L is and a 24-70L so its quite a different setup, and i have the Elinchrome D-lite 4 strobes.

Is this for a museum or a private owner?
Is the point to create 100% accurate shots for archival or similar purposes, or is it a representation of a museum piece as it is displayed?

Many museums do not use what you might call perfect light. They instead use what they feel best brings out the painting. Just like we do, when we play around with curves and such, to get the result we want.

It might be wise to check if there are any such restrictions.

private owner and its for archival as u said!