taking photographs of school displays (Inside)

[tonyq]

Hi all,
I have been asked by a schools head if I would take some photos in the school of some display boards which are displaying about 8 photos/ paintings per board.
Your help/advice will be much appreciated as to the best way to go about this.
I have Canon 600D 18/55 kit lens, 50mm 1.8 prime lens, 70/300 Tamron lens. Canon 430 Speedlite flash.

 

[JohnX]

I'd use the camera on a tripod, lens as required to get the framing right, and let the camera determine the exposure without flash.

 

[chris malcolm]

If the boards are easily detached from the walls it might be easier to photograph them all on an easel or other support in a place chosen for good even light.

 

[tonyq]

Chris & John,
Don't think detaching the boards from the wall would be an option, and they may be to high for my tripod without standing it on something, but could be an option.
I am thinking of starting off using the 50mm prime @ 8f Auto ISO probably "P" or "Av" mode, should this be O.K.

 

[OldCarlos]

Use a step ladder/trestle to get level with them. I wouldn't have thought you'd need anywhere near F8.

 

[chris malcolm]

If it's difficult to get the camera high enough to face them square on, you could photograph them from below, tilted up, and correct the perspective, as a shift lens could, but with software, such as the excellent and inexpensive PTLens (which comes as both standalone program & Photoshop plugins), or with an editor which does perspective projection shifts properly, sun as DXO. Minimise the angle of uptilt by stepping back and using longer focal length. Doing such image manipulation of course loses you some resolution. Given how handsomely pretty much any good modern camera outstrips the detail resolution you're likely to find in wall displays that shouldn't matter. Before doing any perspective projection changes the image must be corrected for perfect linearity, I.e. lens geometry aberrations (such as barrel distortion) corrected. DXO and PTLens do that very well from extensive tables of correction factors.

 

[Teflon-Mike]

It' a flat display, you don't need a lot of Depth-of-field, you can use a pretty wide aperture.
It's a static display - nothing should be moving, you shouldn't need a particularly high shutter speed.
And using a tripod - you aught be able to use as low a ISO as you like and get higher exposure from a longer shutter, if needed.
My worry, would be available lighting.. if you are photographing photographs, good chance they are pretty glossy; art-work? Similarly.
I would NOT repeat NOT want to use flash! To avoid harsh reflections of the subject.
Typical school corridor? Available lighting is either going to be window-light ad or over-head fluorescent strip lighting.
Overhead strip lighting? Not nice, and apart from green-cast on the white-balance, is also likely to be some-what harsh, and give hot spots on more reflective bits of the display.
Window-lighting, is likely to be far more natural, and neutral, and even over the subject.. but depends on the windows...
Getting all 'technical' about it, ideal would probably be three or four 'soft-boxes' set up to chuck an even light over the whole display.... I would be thinking angle-poise desk lamps, and gaffer taping card-board boxes with white T-shirts stretched over them, over the lamp-shade!
THEN, I might start to think about the camera.. and being 'square' to the subject, and framing for the whole display.....
A 50mm lens on a crop sensor body, is probably NOT going to have a wide enough angle-of-view, at any short range permitted in a typical corridor, nor would the longer focal lengths of the kit 18-55!!
18mm focal length on my 'kit' 18-55 gives me about 3m of wall in the frame, at a range of 2m... so in a 2m wide corridor, you aren't going to have much space to get behind the camera, if the displays are more than maybe 1.5m wide.
This could be a job that really begs an ultra-wide lens, something down in the 10-20mm range, if space is that restrictive.
OR you could have to photograph in sections and stitch them in Panorama software - there's always more than one way to skin a cat!
Question to the Head, would be what do they want to use the photo's for? How 'good' do they need to be? How big are they ever going to be displayed?
But my concerns would be first the lighting, then the access, and then controlling perspective, and keeping the camera square to the subject, in both planes...
Flash and hand-holding would not be considered in anything but the last resort!

 

[juggler]

I would NOT repeat NOT want to use flash! To avoid harsh reflections of the subject.

I absolutely would. It's the best way to guarantee you're in control of the lighting. One flash umbrella either side of the subject at 45 degrees is pretty much the standard way to photograph documents, paintings and the like.

If the subjects are very shiny then there are other issues - and solutions - but small amounts of shine can probably be ignored.

If you're not familiar with flash then moving the boards to somewhere with even natural light will probably be your best bet. If you can't move them then use large white pieces of card to ensure even light and prevent colour casts from surrounding walls.

At the very least make sure you use a grey card for white balance. Use a tripod with mirror lockup and a cable or delayed release - perch the tripod on something if you have to. Turn off VR - in theory it can reduce sharpness when using a tripod. Shoot in manual and if you don't have a light meter than make sure you check your histogram. My experience of allowing the camera to determine exposure for this kind of work is that matrix mode can under-expose.

I'd do everything I could to avoid stitching; there should be no need unless you really can't get the subject completely in the frame.

Lightroom's lens correction panel is very good at correcting slight perspective errors.

edit: bouncing a flash off a large white card behind the camera position could be an alternative to the two umbrella approach but experiment first.