Coat of arms on wall, between two large windows

[cj bartis]

I don't know if this question is about natural lighting, or more about the

problem natural light is causing.

 

I need to photograph a large coat of arms, hanging on a church wall, between two

large windows. The "sheild" cannot be moved, and the church ceiling is fairly

high, though white I believe.

 

I have limited equipment - a Canon Rebel XT/350D, an on-camera 430ex, and the

17-55 f2.8 lens (plus a few others) and I also have a tripod.

 

I'm not happy with my first results, where I tried feathering the amount of

flash hitting the sheild, while also bouncing it off a homemade silver

reflector. It was just too "flashy" and flat. I was a bit rushed and maybe

should've tried bouncing off the high ceiling with the camera body horizontal,

and not vertical... I also didn't think the photo was sharp enough.

 

Anyone have any suggestions, manual camera settings, metering I should try?

 

Thanks.

[greg jansen]

Shoot during the day when the light from the windows is not real strong. Early or later. When you have strong light coming in from the side windows, you are really going to have to blast the shield with your flash to balance the light, which will result in unwanted reflections and such.

 

Wait for the right time, use a tripod, meter the ambient light with your camera on Manual and set it to that. Now turn on the flash (ttl is fine, manual is better). Adjust slowly for less ambient exposure (progressively faster shutter speeds).

 

On the flash, if you are reasonably close to the shield, try the head straight up and some kind of bounce card (index card or something) taped to the flash. The light bouncing off the card will be less harsh than the flash straight on.

 

It's going to take some playing around. Time of day (amount of light coming from the side windows) is going to make a big difference.

[cj bartis]

Thanks for replying Gary.

 

The time of day is fixed, 3pm, as that's when someone can come and open the church (small and in the middle of nowhere ;-) The blasting the sheild is the part I don't like.

 

Your tips sound good. They all make sense and it gives me a good starting point. Like I said the ceiling is pretty high for a small church but together with a bounce card and some ambient light it might work out.

 

I was trying to think if there were some way I could reflect some of the light coming in the windows back onto the sheild, but I only have one reflector and I would, ideally, need two large ones.

 

Thanks again.

[mark u]

How about white bedsheets? You would need some longish poles, a means of attaching the sheets and probably some helpers to hold the poles.

[timcorridan]

do you need the windows in the photo? can you take two exposures. one for the coat of arms, and one for the windows. then combine the 2 on the puter? a tripod is needed of course.

[twmeyer]

Put two large sheets of white board on either side of your camera, almost parallel to the wall (where the coat of arms is), but angled in slightly (as reflectors of the window light to shine the light on the coat of arms). Put two smaller black cards, perpendicular to the wall very close to your lens (to block the window light out of the lens). Stand with your back to the coat of arms and adjust the black cards until you can't see the windows reflected in your lens, but can't see the cards in your view finder (looking through the camera). This might work :^) Otherwise, block the windows and rent some lights.<p>Good luck and don't forget to use a custom white balance... t

[willhl]

You could also bring in a reflector to soften you flash, either the bed sheet or a big piece of white card, and put it to one side of you and aim the flash into that then onto the shield. It will give you a bigger light source (softer light) and also side light the shield which will bring out the texture of it a bit and avoid direct reflections. Might get you out of trouble. Otherwise get a radio trigger or an optical slave (might work with on camera flash to trigger) and get the flash off the camera and to the side a bit.

 

If the sun is really bright you may need high speed sync, if on camera, otherwise it gets tricky once the flash is off the camera. If off camera then you'll need to have your shutter speed at the maximum sync speed (1/250) although you may be able to sync up to 1/320.

 

Ok I'm blabing on now, let us know how you go.

[enzo_simonelli]

Natural incoming Light only; and long-Exposure. Not needing high ISO, then.

 

Thanks to a several minuts long-Exposure, You can made a second attempt with an hand-held home-light moving and aimed all around towards the arms.