Art photography, Lens correction, new lens? and lighting??

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I'm using a Nikon d7100 with a Nikkor 35mm f1.8 lens for fine art photography. A few questions -

My images always seem to need lens correction (which is easy with Lightroom) however I' wondering why this is and what can be done to improve. I'm on a tripod, aimed central to the artwork, balanced etc etc. I try to fill the frame to max out the resolution so perhaps I am just too close, but I don't want to loose pixels.

I am considering investing in another lens so perhaps this would help. Would anyone have suggestions for this? 50mm? 65mm?
What are the benefits of increasing the focal range for artwork photography? Are they better quality?

I'm also considering lighting - in case anyone knows about this. I prefer diffusers and constant lights not flash I think..

Thank you!! alot of questions here....
 
Barrel distortion is just a fact of working with lenses at the wide end of the scale (like your 35mm) and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it in terms of technique.
 
Thanks, so if I scale up to say 50mm will I have less distortion and be able to get closer to objects / artwork and keep things sharp?
 
Thanks, so if I scale up to say 50mm will I have less distortion and be able to get closer to objects / artwork and keep things sharp?
You'd have less barrel distortion at 50mm, yes. You'll need to move further away from the artwork to get the equivalent field of view, though.
 
You could swap your 35mm 1.8 for either of Nikons full frame 35mm f1.4 of f2 and see a big reduction in distortion particularly on your crop body without altering your framing although you will still probably want to use software correction for critical stuff like this.
 
you need to find a lens with a flat field with little distortion, sure lens correction of distortion in software is decent, but still your losing detail and the software pushes and pulls pixels about

or just buy a sigma dp3 :p
 
The 40mm AFS DX f2.8 has only a tiny amount of pincushion distortion, unlikely you would see it with the naked eye, the Nikon 60mm AFS Micro f2.8 has even less distortion and definitely not visible to the naked eye.
 
thanks all!, if i went for a 60mm lens, and am shooting say at 20x16 inch painting for example. Is there a way to work out how far away i would need to be to fill the frame and fit the piece? Often I am working in tight artist studios / homes and want to keep using a prime lens (for sharpness) but might not have space to play with?
 
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Shoot in jpg, the camera can correct institution automatically to save you the hassle.

Otherwise buy the 40mm macro, I'd have thought the macro feature should come in handy?
 
For copying flat artwork, a macro lens is best. No distortion, no field curvature, and high sharpness right to the corners. Longer focal length makes lighting easier, as copying is prone to reflections at close range. Greater distance also makes framing up dead square to the work a lot easier. You can calculate working distances from your 35mm lens, ie a 70mm lens will give you the same framing at double the distance, and pro-rata other focal lengths.
 
thanks all!, if i went for a 60mm lens, and am shooting say at 20x16 inch painting for example. Is there a way to work out how far away i would need to be to fill the frame and fit the piece? Often I am working in tight artist studios / homes and want to keep using a prime lens (for sharpness) but might not have space to play with?

It's easy to work out if you imagine or draw a triangle (having the use of a CAD program helps).

Draw a vertical line 24mm long (or 36mm for full frame) then draw a line horizontally from the middle of the first line 60mm long (focal length of the lens). Join up the ends of the lines to form a triangle. The angle between the two lines above and below the horizontal line is the angle of view.

You can also use these lengths to work out the distance for any subject size. If your subject is 1 metre wide, you want that to fit the 24mm width of the sensor. The distance will be the focal length multiplied by the subject width divided by the sensor width which is 60 x 1000 / 24 = 2500mm or 2.5 metres.

Another way to think of it once you have settled on the lens is as a factor of focal length divided by sensor width. So this would be 60/24 = 2.5. Just multiply the width of any piece of artwork you want to photograph by 2.5 and that will give you the distance.

EDIT: This is assuming the longest side for both artwork and sensor.


Steve.
 
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