Enrique :
In regards to shooting oil paintings or other works of art the secret is very
even nearly flat lighting. That means you must use more than one strobe unless
you have one very well filtered and very powerful strobe. And still two
strobes are better than one. Also forget TTL. You must use a flash meter (or
else have the rare ability of reading light without one .. joke). What you
must do is to position the strobes until nearly every area of the painting is
reading the same amount of light. Obviously this will take some patience (but
then again isn't that what good photography is all about).
My only other advice is to take the painting out of doors on a slightly
overcast day and position until you get identical spot readings using your OM2
in the spot mode (of course!).
Regardless of outdoor or indoor with strobes you should use a neutral colored
background paper or cloth. And if you want to be professional as possible I
strongly suggest using polarizing filters over the light sources (or the lens
for out door work). Your goal should be to capture the exact color and shade
the artist used in the painting. Stray light will create hot spots and overly
shadowed areas thus completely destroying the context of the artist's work.
Shooting art work can be challenging at first. But remember your goal is to
capture the work to film as close as possible to the original.
Phillip Franklin
Solana Beach, CA
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