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Camera and Lens
Always shoot with a telephoto lens as this will minimize distortion, keystoning and glare. It is easier to keep square to the image with a longer lens.
• For 4x5" I shoot with a Sinar p and a 300/9 Nikkor-M lens. This lens is essentially a "process" lens mounted with a Copal shutter. A process lens is one designed to fit on a process or lithographic camera used for shooting high contrast litho negs for color separations. This lens barely covers 8x10" which means I'm NOT using the edges of what this lens covers, providing crisp images over the whole 4x5 film plane. I shoot at or near F22. I never shoot 4x5 copywork at F11 or F16 -- there is just too much risk of the image getting soft on the edges (or if I missed the focus a little the extra depth of field will help "bring it in"). I previously owned a 120mm Macro lens but found it was much too short for copywork -- the longer the better in copywork!
• With 35mm or DSLR format I shoot with a telephoto macro lens (they are flat field and better for copywork than traditional lenses). I usually shoot at F8 or F11 with such a lens.
Lighting Equipment
Most traditional photo labs use Type B or tungsten film for their copywork and match this film with 3200ºK balanced quartz halogen lights. It is a simple economical question as most 35mm copy cameras (Maron, Forox, Bencher etc.) come fitted with tungsten lights. They are cheaper than strobes. If you notice when Kodak and Fuji introduce their newfangled films (which means better grain structure) they always introduce it with daylight films first and several years later upgrade their tungsten line of films. This is one reason I shoot with strobe/daylight films (daylight or 5500ºK) -- I want the best film available.
I shoot with 4800 watt-seconds of power with a Speedotron Black line power pack. It is voltage regulated so I get consistent results from frame to frame. Each head is a UV corrected head with 11.5" 50º reflectors. Over each head I mount a 12x12" polarizing filter with the axis set horizontal. I also place a clear Rosco filter or gel between the polarizing filter and the strobe tube so the heat from the "pops" and the heat from the 250-watt tungsten modeling light (which is directed outward by the fan-cooled heads) doesn't fry my polarizing filters.
With the slow lens (F9) on my 4x5 and the polarizing filters over both lens and lights I can barely see a clear image to focus. For focusing I use a separate 1000 watt quartz-halogen light which is turned off before shooting.
Mechanical Set Up
I have a 8x8-foot shooting "board" on one end of my studio covered with black Duvetyne (sp?) fabric. I check the wall and front of the lens with a spirit level (i.e. torpedo bubble level) so they are matched. I have center lines marked on the board and on the floor. Many times I get art that is framed and hangs from a wire on the back. Those always hang at an angle to the wall. Rather than fight it, I use a Mayes Level + Angle Finder to match the camera to the art. This device enables me to read how far off the art is (in degrees) -- I then place this device on the front of the lens and adjust the camera accordingly.
To calibrate the squareness of the camera to the "board" I mount a mirror to the board and view it with my camera. I center the reflection of the lens in this mirror and move it back in several steps, placing white gaffer tape on the floor. The lights are placed at a 30-45º angle to the art. Depending how far back the art is I move the lights further back, although I have one standard starting point. I always hang the art so the longest axis runs horizontally -- this enables me to "feather" the lights left or right to obtain even lighting on the whole piece.
Polarization
Polarization is not needed for all art. Smooth pieces like pastels, charcoals or some watercolors can be shoot without polarization. The light on textured art (oils and acrylics) creates glare or tiny highligts along the bumpy edges. Polarizing filters eliminate most, if not all of these. Polarization adds contrast so many times I bag the polarization if I can avoid it. As mentioned above (Lighting Equipment) I place polarizing filters over my lights and over the lens of the camera. This is called "cross polarization." A single polarizer filter over the lens is almost ineffetive.
I place a pair of scissors or other reflective material over the art and then rotate the lens filter until the chrome reflection turns black. The combination of two polarization filters eats up a ton of light -- about three stops -- so budget accordingly and plan on long exposures or multiple pops if needed. Although polarzing filters are supposed to be totally neutral they sometimes add a hint of color to the shot. You may need to add a color correction (CC) filter to compensate for any color shifts caused by this filter.
I have some customers that have gold leaf or shiny metalic frames. Full polarization makes the frames appear black. I usually back off a little so the frames show their true color, hopefully without causing any glare on the actuall painting (I typically back off from "full polarization" or rotate the filter about 15-degrees--I made a degree scale and glued it on my 52mm polarizing filter). Backing off on the polarization requires an adjustment (closing down or letting in less light) in the aperature, usually 1/3 stop.
Metering
I never use an in-camera meter for this purpose, nor do I use a 18% gray card and meter in the reflective mode. I awlays use an incident flash meter. I used to use a Sekonic L-328 incident meter with the optional flat disk in place. I have now replaced that meter with the Sekonic L-508 and use it with the dome in the "down" position. With the dome down the ISO is totally out to lunch and I basically run my own tests to see where it falls (it reads about a stop under). I measure different parts of the art and try to get my readings over the whole piece within 3/10s of a stop. Even with 4800 watt-seconds of power I use multiple pops with sheet film -- leaving the shutter open (with all lights off including modeling lights) and hit it three to five times. Also visit this link on my site for more information about calibration problems with this meter.
Films
• E-6 films: As mentioned above I use daylight films. My favorite is Fuji Astia which is a E-6 reversal film providing slides or transparencies. My runner-up film is Kodak E100S. Most labs use tungsten films. I would recommend Fuji tungsten as the colors are more accurate than the Kodak tungsten counterpart. Some shooters prefer Kodak EPN as it is reported to be the most color-accurate film on the market. I hate it because it has golfball-size grain and the yellows are totally dead. It is a film designed in the 1970s or 1980s and has practically never been improved since then.
Whenever I shoot 4x5 art using polarization I overexpose and under develop my film to gain back some of the contrast lost by the polarization. I have the lab pull my film by a full stop (normal -1). This seems like a radical procedure but I have been routinely been doing this now for five + years with both Astia and E100S. It also takes the edge or punch out of these vibrant films. Always use a certified Kodak Q-lab or Fuji Tech lab for best results.
• C-41 films: I rarely use C-41 films, but when I do I basically use any off the shelf ISO 100 print film from Fuji and hope for the best, as the lab will usually botch the prints anyway. Sometimes it is helpful to give them a slide of the same art as reference to match.
Digital Cameras
With a digital camera, the lighting and lens principles are the same. I always do a custom white balance using a gray card, rather than leaving it to guesswork later in PhotoShop (read more about color balance on this page). I shoot in RAW mode and typically will provide the customer with both the RAW file and a CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow & black) TIFF file. The RAW file (and/or Adobe DNG "raw" file) is right out of the camera and is unretouched. I label the folder The TIFF file may include some minor density adjustments and I typically give it a shot of Unsharp Masking. I also convert it from RGB to CMYK because magazines and brochures prefer it in this format. If the files are for use on the web, then save the RAW files as JPGs and leave them as RGB.
With digital DSLR cameras (using Canon DSLRs with the contrast setting to "normal"), I set my exposure so that a 18% gray card in Photoshop reads 55-58% without polariztion and 63-66% with polariztion. I use the grayscale black channel (what is that?).
Establishing a Standard
Before I shoot any real art I shoot many bracketed tests of a 20x30" dummy piece of art I made (called a Shirley -- similar in function to a standardized negative distributed by Kodak to photo labs worldwide). This helps me establish a "standard" for a given film/lighting/lab/camera combination. I have two standards for each film format -- one for polarization and one without. This dummy art includes a variety of images (cut out of magazines) and textures (including black, gray and white fabric) plus the Kodak Color Control Patches and Kodak Gray Scales. Each of these are 2.5x8" patches and are purchased as a set. I sometimes place the back side of my hand in the shot as a visual skin tone reference or place a model there.
This is my "Shirley" color chart, with a model next to it. I always have the model wear white so I judge highlight detail.
(Don't forget to compensate for bellows factor on your 4x5 [any art smaller than 30" across requires this]. If you don't know what this is, then maybe you shouldn't be doing this rather technical chore! When shooting with 35mm, art smaller than 9 inches requires close-up compensation. Most macro lenses have a scale which shows the ratios and necessary compensation.)
I shoot a wide range of bracketed film and lay them out on a color corrected light box to view. I look for detail in the whites (I have some white fabric on the dummy test art). Generally the blacks will be gone with E-6 film so I usually look at the skin tones and whites and let the darkest values fall.
Once you have established a standard, you will need to open up a 1/2 to 2/3 of a stop for dark or low-key art. Closing down a 1/3 to 1/2 stop is necessary for pieces with lots of white or light colored backgrounds.
Depending on the lab I may add filtration to the lens to get neutral grays. It seems I usually end up adding 5-10 points (using CC filters) of yellow or a combination of yellow and reds.
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