Lighting to photograph Oil Paintings

Hi, I'm thinking about trying my luck photographing a copy of an oil painting. I will be

using two Tungsten 250 W bulbs with diffusers. If needed, I can put a polarizer on the

lens, but I don't have polarizing sheets to put infront of the hot-lights.

 

Does anybody have any other techniques to minimize the glare coming off the

painting ? I noticed that photographing paintings in musemus without a flash, but with

a very good fast lens, works pretty well except that you don't allways capture all the

details.

Because of the way an oil painting is made (with many different brush strokes in many different directions, wirth the thicker the paint the worst the reflections are) light bounces from it in all directions. This makes photographing it without any reflections very difficult. You can try either extremely soft/bounced lighting or double polarizers with direct lighting. The difficulty with using rather expensive polarizing material on hot lights is that they can degrade very fast due to the heat. Therefore you would also need to use separate filter holding stands that rotate and that are a safe distance from the light or a dichoric heat reflective shield before the polarizer if you want to use the on light filter holder.

You need to polarize the lights -and- the lens to get rid of those specular reflections. As Mike said, the glossyness of oils coupled with the variation in brush strokes makes it difficult (if not impossible) to light otherwise. B&H may sell Rosco polarizing film that's meant for hot lights...

Wow I didn't know it was that complicated. Thanks for the advice.

You might find Rosco polarizing gel cheaper at a theatrical lighting or movie grip supply house. Typically a 20" X 30" sheet sells for <$10 at a lighting supply house.

 

<Chas>

"You might find Rosco polarizing gel cheaper at a theatrical lighting or movie grip supply house"

 

I tried shooting the so-called oil painting on my living wall last-night without polarizers and got horrifc results. I tried using a polarizer filter over the lens, but in the dim light of my living room, I could no tell wich way to rotate the filter. There was this thin sheet of snowy fog over the entire painting no matter where I placed the lights ?

 

I'm not going to give up though, just need to upgrade my equiment. Charles tyou are right there is this supply store that sells all kinds of sheet type filters for much cheaper than you can get them at B&H etc. I remember ordering some neutral density filters for my

Beseler Enlarger a couple of years ago not sure if it was Rosco. Thanks.

Harry, you won't see any effect with a polarizing filter on the camera only. You will see the effect only after you polarize the light sources.

 

Place your lights at a 45deg angle off center of the picture. That way the worst reflection will not be toward the lens.

 

You might try bouncing the light, say into the opposite corners of the room, to get something approaching "available museum" light.

 

Keep in mind that nothing is moving, so you don't need a fast shutter speed, so you don't need a lot of light. If you can get even, non reflective light, even if it's dim, you can keep the shutter open for an appropriate time.

 

<Chas>

And make sure all of the polarizers are oriented 'correctly'. Turn on one light/polarizer combination. Adjust camera polarizer for minimum reflection (mark polarizer setting). Turn off first light and turn on second light/polarizer combination. Adjust -polarizer on the light- for minimum reflection, keeping camera polarizer unchanged.

I'm an artist as well, and I have taken photos of my paintings. I find the best way to do it is by taking it outside on an overcast day and then adjust the positioning until you don't get any glare on it, and then play with the exposures until you get it right. You may have to fiddle with the colors in Photoshop after to get the colors to match the painting as close as you can, and also to fill in the background if you really want to. But you would probably have to do that any way you try to capture it.

 

Basically, No flash, no lights, no sun :) A lot of my other artist friends do it that way too. Give it a try for comparison. I don't even do filters because I don't want anything to change the color of my paintings. I do have a UV filter on all the time, but that doesn't affect the color. Anyways hope this helps.

<p><a href="http://www.perfectpicturelighting.com/"><strong>Oil paintings</strong></a> can be difficult to light because of the spectral highlights that are created when intense light is directed at the painting. A broad-based light source is best for lighting an oil painting.<br>

<img src="http://www.perfectpicturelighting.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/TLED24-51.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="285" /><br>

<br />Acrylic paintings are not glossy and consequently don't have the glare problems associated with oils or artwork framed under glass. Any type of light source can be used.</p>