Minimalist Oil Paintings Won't Come Into Focus?

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Andrew
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Having trouble photographing my wife's oil paintings. I just can't get the camera to focus on them, manual or auto. I'm using a 60mm lens and D3200, two lights, tripod and a polarising filter. The paintings are minimalist, so there's very little to focus on especially in the middle. I've tried taping a cross on the painting's surface to get the lens to focus. I've used both single-point AF and Auto-area AF, as well as manual. The paintings are medium sized, which means with the 60mm lens, the camera is quite far from the paintings. This same set up works fine on my own paintings, which happen to have more lines, shapes and edges. Btw. I'm short-sighted, wear glasses and wondered if there's a problem here with the manual focusing?

What can I do? Thanks.
 
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Having trouble photographing my wife's oil paintings. I just can't get the camera to focus on them, manual or auto. I'm using a 60mm lens and D3200, two lights, tripod and a polarising lens. The paintings are minimalist, so there's very little to focus on especially in the middle. I've tried taping a cross on the painting's surface to get the lens to focus. I've used both single-point AF and Auto-area AF, as well as manual. The paintings are medium sized, which means with the 60mm lens, the camera is quite far from the paintings. This same set up works fine on my own paintings, which happen to have more lines, shapes and edges. Btw. I'm short-sighted, wear glasses and wondered if there's a problem here with the manual focusing?

What can I do? Thanks.

Manual focus on your paintings which suggests it's user error.
 
Are you focusing through the viewfinder or live view, hand held or tripod?
In live view you can zoom in/enlarge the image, then manually focus.
 
You must be able to focus manually unless you are closer than the minimum distance of the lens but you say you are a good distance away. The lens has a distance scale on it, start by measuring the distance from the camera to the painting and set the lens to that distance.
 
Are your own paintings the same size as your wife’s and so the distance is roughly the same?
 
Are you focusing through the viewfinder or live view, hand held or tripod?
In live view you can zoom in/enlarge the image, then manually focus.
I've just checked the manual about Live View - looks like this is the answer. I don't know why I haven't been using this all along!

You must be able to focus manually unless you are closer than the minimum distance of the lens but you say you are a good distance away. The lens has a distance scale on it, start by measuring the distance from the camera to the painting and set the lens to that distance.

I think I'm ok here.

Are your own paintings the same size as your wife’s and so the distance is roughly the same?

The larger ones of mine are a bit smaller, but I still need to be a good distance away to fit them into the frame.
 
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If you cannot get the kit to focus even when you have given it a contrast target.

Then something either must be different in your setup compared to when it works ok with your painting.

Or as a result of a change in setup you have either closed in closer than lens minimum focusing distance compared to your painting

Or perhaps if the distance has increased is there a problem with the lens, in that it will not focus at the subject to camera distance???
 
I have photographed a few paintings but would always avoid glass. Best to photograph without glass; I certainly do not have glass with my own oil painting anyway. Although I have tried some different lighting set ups, I generally find photographing outside on the North side of a building (no direct light) and take a shot of my colour checker passport as well as this will allow me to get the right WB. Yes, I would always use live view for this type of subject you can zoom in with live view.

Dave
 
As well as manual in live view (magnified) you can get a lazer thingy that puts a grid on things, I think it's used by builders for something but I might well be wrong. It seems to be popular with people who shoot in nearly pitch dark.
 
I'm trying to photograph 'minimalist' oil paintings, using 'Live View' and MF. Using Nikon D3200, 60mm Lens, Tripod, two sets of LED work lights, polarising filter. But the Live View on the screen is very fuzzy, quite dim and that makes it difficult to focus. There's very little to focus on in these featureless paintings and I've taken to taping an A4 piece of paper with a cross drawn on it for manual focusing.

Am I missing something, or is my camera too poor?
 
Have you tried without the Pol filter??!

I surmise without you will have a brighter, clearer view in LV..... you can always put the filter back on.

Just thought, it you have the filter turned to the extinction point that will make it very dark indeed! Why are you using such a filter???
 
Have you tried without the Pol filter??!

I surmise without you will have a brighter, clearer view in LV..... you can always put the filter back on.

Just thought, it you have the filter turned to the extinction point that will make it very dark indeed! Why are you using such a filter???
I did think of that, and took the filter off, but wasn't much better. I use it to cut down on the pin pricks of light that you get when photographing paintings. I've asked in another thread about improving my lighting...
 
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I did think of that, and took the filter off, but wasn't much better. I use it to cut down on the pin pricks of light that you get when photographing paintings. I've asked in another thread about improving my lighting...

I am puzzled, if you take the camera with that lens outside and use LV is the 'view' still too dark & fuzzy?

I know nowt of that camera but think most have the facility to increase the LCD brightness!
 
Dont seem mergers to me, assuming you mean https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/lighting-for-oil-paintings.704745/#post-8579577 which shows up separately for me, last post by studio488commercial. Maybe local problem to me, I’ve tried refreshing etc.

Edit, now a post by Garry Edwards

no, the OP had two posts in this forum, post #1 and post #12 in this thread were the startup questions... I merged them, but left the question in lighting that you've linked to run seperately, as that was asking about what lights to buy, and these ones were asking about actually getting the picture in focus....
 
I am puzzled, if you take the camera with that lens outside and use LV is the 'view' still too dark & fuzzy?

I know nowt of that camera but think most have the facility to increase the LCD brightness!
I haven't got the camera in from t of me, but I'll take it outside, filter off to see if the display is better. And I'm about to consult the manual on increasing the LCD brightness.

I'm also off to Ebay where I'm sure I saw a card with contrasting patterns for focusing. I that something else I could use?

As mentioned, in another thread I'm looking at purchasing better lighting (would help with focusing, yes?), but that thread has suggested Studio Flash, which will be off when I'm trying to focus!
 
no, the OP had two posts in this forum, post #1 and post #12 in this thread were the startup questions... I merged them, but left the question in lighting that you've linked to run seperately, as that was asking about what lights to buy, and these ones were asking about actually getting the picture in focus....
Sorry!
 

If i'm 100% honest, I'd not actually seen (or had reported to me) the other thread anyway, until you mentioned it - but I think it was different enough not to be classed as cross-posting or multiple posting - the other 2 threads however were pretty much the same, and in the same forum area, so just to concentrate all the information in one place, it made sense to merge things (we don't just tidy things up to calm our OCD, it's generally got a purpose behind it ;) )
 
I haven't got the camera in from t of me, but I'll take it outside, filter off to see if the display is better. And I'm about to consult the manual on increasing the LCD brightness.

I'm also off to Ebay where I'm sure I saw a card with contrasting patterns for focusing. I that something else I could use?

As mentioned, in another thread I'm looking at purchasing better lighting (would help with focusing, yes?), but that thread has suggested Studio Flash, which will be off when I'm trying to focus!

What I am trying to understand is, does the camera function as one might expect in outside daylight conditions in regard to focusing and clearness of the LCD in LV?

As for a focusing chart! IMO you don't need one.......if you want a crisp target print a black cross and/or a simple grid pattern on your inkjet or laser printer. If it will not AF or MF on that then you have other issues of either pilot error and/or camera setup!

In regard to lighting, I will leave that to better minds than mine :)
 
Have you taken a photo and found that to be out of focus? Just thinking that someone may have fiddled with the diopter adjustment so when you look through the view finder it's out of focus. You wouldn't realise unless you used AF and took the shot to view in photo editing software.
 
IIRC live view represents the way an image will look with the selected settings for aperture and exposure. If the LV image is dark then either increase exposure time or open the aperture. You may also have exposure compensation (+/- EV) set to a negative value, and that will have the same effect.
 
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