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HELP – job on tomorow (taking pics of pics)
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Copyright issues aside (these appear to have been adequately addressed) how you approach this depends a lot on the type of room you will be in. Is it a bright airy contemporary style room with lot’s of ambient light or is it a more traditional room, quite dark, with lot’s of “heavy” furnishings?
Certainly, the former would make life a lot easier. I think you’ve been given lot’s of useful advice already, particularly on how to handle reflections with the black background. Ideally, you would shoot from behind the black background with a hole cut through it to poke the lens through. That way you won’t get any bits of yourself or your shiny tripod reflecting in the image.
Another option would be to hire 2 studio lights and polarize the light using sheets of polarizing film over each of the lights, which would be angled in at 45? to the picture. That’s a much bigger task though, although it could be worth doing.
One thing that nobody has mentioned yet is white balance. Of course this may not matter too much if the pictures you are copying have faded and shifted in colour over the years, but I think it’s worth taking a few moments to get this right. I think you’re best bet is to use a neutral white or neutral grey target in a test shot and adjust the white balance afterwards. For a complete analysis of colour you would really need to include a MacBeth colour chart.
Hope that’s of some help and hasn’t made the task seem even more difficult!
Good post jb, and thanks for clearing that up, Imagine. Good luck with the job.
Probably too late to matter now..
Good advice from Thor, although probably overkill for this job. Polarising the light is a great way to control reflections but it’s difficult to find polarising gels at a reasonable price.
I’d shoot this with an offest studio flash (so as to avoid direct reflections. I’d thoroughly clean the glass (if there is any), I’d use a black cloth behind the camera (probably shoot through a hole in the cloth (ideally shifted but I don’t have a shift lens), If I were in front of the cloth, I’d wear black. I’d probably justshoot at a slight angle and straighten up afterwards.
Re. aperture, I would use a lens that has minimal distortions (50mm prime, or 105 prime), I would shoot it at F4, not higher!! At F4 my primes are crystal clear and you’re shooting a flat object here. I’d want any stray reflections to blur away (if I’m shooting at an angle, I’d review the Dof requirement).
If you can close the curtains in the room, you should be fine for this shot (a gridded strobe).
Tripod if you can get it to the height you need, else a ladder. with a studio flash, yu shouldn’t really need a tripod, just take them a bit wide and crop/straighten/correct.
Si
Ramble over.
Thanks to everyone for their hints, tips and advice.
I’ve posted some of the results below.
Thanks again for all your help, very much appreciated.
D.
Excellent work imagine. Looks like it turned out very well for you.
Might be worth describing the set up you eventually decided on and
giving us a run down on your methods. A job well done…Rob.
Well done indeed. You’ve done a very fine job !
As Rob says, lets have some details on the method(s) used.
Lovely portraits-
looks like you did a good job there-
nice to see them live again,
letter of the copyright law or no-J
Ok so here goes with my “method” although that makes it sound much more professional than it actually was.
Ok so the equipment I used.
350d with 100mm Macro lens on a tripod
Two sweeping brush handles, two toilet plungers, a sheet of 2×4 ply (laminated on one side), one roll of duck tape and an old black blanket from which I fashioned a portable shade application device (for lack of better name).In relation to the aforementioned shade application device (aka the SAD*) would be to note that when entering government buildings or other similar locations it should be packed discreetly in order not to be directed towards the leaky toilet rather than photography assignment.
* Patent pending, lol
So having arrived on location and assembled my SAD, I closed all the blinds and curtains as the noon sun was coming in 3 different windows and causing all kinds of interesting lightening to contend with. I then proceeded to use the SAD either positioned to one side offering shade or shooting through a hole (as advised on here) to minimize lighting contrasts and reflections.
I chose my 100mm over the 50mm as being further away helped minimize the reflections.
I shot on aperture priority at what Brian Peterson calls a “who cares aperture” of 11, 100 ISO (as I knew I’d need to process) and this gave me shutter speeds of between 2 and 4’5 seconds depending on the picture. Oh and I set the WB to automatic as I had enough to worry about. I shot in raw + jpg just in case but ended up just processing the jpg files.
So that’s how I took the pictures but honestly what really made the difference was the processing. When processing I adjusted levels (pulled in black and white sliders), curves (slight sbend), hue and saturation (decreased saturation). The last part was important as the yellow walls in the room I took the pics in combined with the processing boosted the sepia toning to almost yellow. Getting the processing right was a learning process as I hadn’t done much of it before. I can’t believe how great a levels adjustment layer can be. The shots posted here are not the final versions that will appear in the book as I have no idea how to sharpen for print (or otherwise) and they are rgb rather than cymk. As I didn’t know what was required in respect of these I just said so and sent them to the printer to process the way they required.
So that is about it really except to say that since then I started giving the same treatment to some old family pics to prepare a present for my parents 40th and I?m loving it. Fantastic learning process.
The book is being launched by the president of the Supreme Court on the 7th of December and as I?m attending I hope to get to take some actual portraits.
Thanks again to everyone for their help and advice some of which was definitely relied upon.
If anyone has any questions/comments let me know.
Thanks again for all your help and advice.
D
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