Polarizing Filters and Photographing Art Work

6 years 8 months ago #540722 by Daimon
I have a Nikon D7000 camera fitted with a 18 - 105mm Nikkor lens.  I've been photographing a recent painting and the results and the results were unsatisfactory at best.  For example, the colors in the flesh tone look mottled or broken up, if not garish, which is not visible when viewing the painting.  I realize a polarizer knocks out glare, but I was wondering how much it affects colors.  Moreover, the prices seem to vary dramatically, which I assume represents the difference in quality.  Thanks in advance for your help/advice.


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6 years 7 months ago #541234 by Joves
While yes a CP will maybe saturate the colors some, you will get more effect with proper exposure. Were you shooting in one of the preset modes? If shooting in Manual are you shooting in RAW+Jpeg, and for your Jpegs are you using a customized setting? For example having it set to Vivid, and tweaking that setting. Also what was the lighting they used for the display? Since this is digital you can tweak some settings, and shoot it as many times as you want, and then later review and see what worked. But I am will to bet you can get the colors you want by messing with settings.


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6 years 7 months ago #541357 by garyrhook
It is also important to understand gamut. There may be (likely are) colors in that painting that will be impossible to capture with a camera.

Yes, I speak from experience.

The real world doesn't fit into sRGB or even AdobeRGB. That said, good lighting, good glass. If you can get those right you might not even need the polarizer.


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6 years 7 months ago #541420 by Daimon
Joves, My set up is quite simple: I use two color corrected lights set at about 45 degree angle towards the painting. I usually set the exposure in A (aperture mode) using the jpeg format. I've ordered a Hoya Pro1 Circular Polarizer and will get back to on the results. Ideally I'd like to get it right in the camera before I resort to using photoshop.


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6 years 7 months ago #541428 by icepics
Maybe you need to bounce the lights so you're not getting reflection off the painting's surface. Shooting Raw instead of JPEGs might give you better options if you need to do some editing.

I think cheaper filters are more likely to be lower in quality. At least I've read that they tend to get stuck on lenses because they're often made (I think) of aluminum.

Sharon
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6 years 7 months ago #541550 by Joves

Daimon wrote: Joves, My set up is quite simple: I use two color corrected lights set at about 45 degree angle towards the painting. I usually set the exposure in A (aperture mode) using the jpeg format. I've ordered a Hoya Pro1 Circular Polarizer and will get back to on the results. Ideally I'd like to get it right in the camera before I resort to using photoshop.

Well then I suggest a diffuser for the lights to soften it. I find that Aperture Mode over exposes, so I just shoot in manual, and adjust the exposures using the meter. In strong lighting I underexpose. You then shoot a series of photos noting how that works out for you. Also again you should shoot RAW+JepgFine. Then you may need as I said earlier that you will need to probably adjust you color setting to Vivid, and see how the stock settings do, or do a custom setting in that. It will be in your manual on how to do it. Also I would set the lens to f/8 for it since that is as a rule the real sweetest spot for almost every lenses f-stop. It is digital so experimenting is the fun part. :cheer:


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6 years 7 months ago #541577 by effron
I agree with Joves...I'd forget the polarizer and soften and angle the light. Shoot, analyze, adjust and shoot until you have the exposure. Don't totally blow off photoshop either....

Why so serious?
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6 years 7 months ago #541589 by garyrhook
What they said above. Soften and low angles. 


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6 years 7 months ago #542793 by Daimon
I finally received the polarizing filter and there wasn't really any improvement for the final image.  However, this time I added more light 
which helped somewhat in subduing the overall "blotchiness". Should add that I used diffusers for the lights from the beginning. 

That said, I noticed that the camera still seems to overly separate the colors, than what is seen by the eye.  In photoshop I desaturated the colors a tad which helped a great deal, but I still had to "doctor" the colors somewhat to match - approximately - the original colors. 

Thanks everyone for your helpful suggestions.  


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6 years 7 months ago #542801 by Joves
You are welcome.
I have not shot a lot of art work, unless you count graffiti, which is really bright for the most part. So I guess you will almost always need to tweak the colors to get them right. You can also play with you cameras settings to influence how it renders colors. Just play with it, and see what works best.


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