31 July, 2011

photographing artwork

Does anyone have any tips on photographing watercolor paintings for upload to artwanted?

I have a Minolta 35 mm XG-M camera with a 25 mm lens, the paaintings are 20-something by 20-something, and they're mounted on the white walls throughout my apartment--with varying amounts of ambient sunlight. Just remembered I have camera option --Nikon N65 with autofocus and 28-80mm zoom lens.

Basically, I'm wondering if, without any professional equipment, I can hope to take pictures that will be of high enough resolution to meet artwanted's crteria for sellable prints in the 20-something by 20-something range. It wouldn't be worth the trouble if the biggest repros I could get were something like 11x14.

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4 Comments

steve kearney 31 Jul 2011

BTW, I do have a tripod.

And correct that XG-M lens is 28mm.

Another problem is most of the paintings are a bit warped--normal for watercolors. I read somewhere there's a way to un-warp them, but I'm afraid the paint would crack.

steve kearney 31 Jul 2011

The warping is a problem because it makes it difficult to focus the camera.

Mike Finley 01 Aug 2011

You're unlikely to be able to do it with those cameras, given that they are film rather than digital cameras. 35mm film images were rarely enlarged to anything like that size, and would be showing significant grain artefacts from the film even before you scanned them into digital form, which would add further artefacts, assuming you could find someone to scan them at a reasonable price.

steve kearney 05 Aug 2011

I'd read somewhere that digital cameras were inferior to professional-quality film, but that was several years ago. I suppose the better digital cameras are by now on a par with a good film camera. And the interface is superior with digital because with analog you're limited by the resolution of your printer screen and it's an extra step for distortion to creep in.

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