jrm40 Loc: Cape Coral Florida

On a wall. Plus I hang it from the frame so it's flat, not from a wire.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Locate the center of the painting, and place a small flat mirror on the surface. Then position the camera where the reflection in the mirror is the camera. If the center of the reflection is the center of the front lens element you have a perfectly centered camera.

A flat field macro lens will probably be best, while a zoom lens will be the worst and the the greater the zoom range the worse it will be.

Placing lights is a very difficult task. Light angled from the side will show more texture on the surface if the angle to the surface is lower. The light will be more even if it is larger. One very nice setup, though hard to produce with exact consistency, is a huge north facing wall of windows with the subject positioned at about a 45 degree angle. Trying to emulate that with artificial lighting is a real challenge, commonly best done with multiple diffused lights.

jrm40 Loc: Cape Coral Florida

My lighting since I bought studio lights has been great. Do place at 45 degree angle and other than some glare from the varnish, which using the polarizing filter has almost totally eliminated in the raw images, I,ve been able to eliminate using the google nik filters.

I,ll try mirror, have to go buy one. See if that helps. If all else fails I look into a macro lens. Thanks for your input.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

Bob,
If the top line is straight horizontal, and the bottom line is seriously off-horizontal, this:
could not be camera merely swung left or right but perfectly upright
could not be picture merely swung left or right but perfectly upright
could not be camera merely tilted to or fro at top or bottom (but not swung left or right)
could not be picture merely tilted to or fro at top or bottom (as on an easel) (but not swung left or right)

Either the camera or the picture would have to be diagonally slanted and tilted in relation to the other, yes? Isn't the only easy way to align the edge of the subject with the edge of the image--visually--so that the top and bottom are parallel in the image, then shoot what you see?

Something was also said about reflections--light should come from the sides equally, or even skylight. or Sun from either side (the Sun is equally distant from both sides). If the texture of the object is wanted, specular light will highlight it (small light source), or if the brush strokes (for instance) are not wanted in detail, diffuse light will subdue it.

Copy stands are not free, but could be considered. One could also contrive the equivalent (Google).

jrm40 Loc: Cape Coral Florida

Wen I look in view finder or screen mostly, i zoom in to fill as much as i can. Either height or width. When I check top & bottom of screen the top & bottom of painting are horizontal and the vertically they also look good. But in editing when I want to crop any background left thats when diatortion shows up.

All my paintings range from 28" x 36" or larger. Copy stand wouldn't be practical. At this point I'm considering a new macro lens, looking into renting one to see if that fixes this problem. If so then I'll buy one. In the meantime I'll try suggestions posted. Thanks for your input.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

How much room do you have? At 28"x36", you'd need 10 feet camera to subject distance with a 70mm lens. Or 5 feet with a 35mm lens, and at 10 feet this would allow for a canvas size up to 54 inches on the short side.

The problem is that you are not going to find a macro lens with that short of a focal length!

Describe your "studio" area, and we'll mull over what kind of a lens you'd want to use. And oddly enough, since you probably are going to have to use a wide angle lens rather than a macro lens, there are some interesting options as far as a copy stand too. Take a look at this thread from just awhile back:

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-427004-1.html

Unless you have a very large working space, you will be most interested in finding a 20 to 24mm wide angle lens with low astigmatism all the way to the corners and low barrel/pincushion distortion along the edges. That can be judged by looking at MTF charts for a lens. (And a "flat field" isn't really important because of the extremely wide DOF.)

On the other hand, if you have 15 feet of room, look for a 60mm macro lens. That would allow some relatively larger, up to 4'x6', paintings to be photographed.

jrm40 Loc: Cape Coral Florida

My room is 20' x 20'. Part of it, one corner is my work area for painting which takes up about 8 feet long with a desk that takes up about 3 feet for my paints and brushes. Along that side is my easel. Then on one side running the distance of the room are built in cabinets with a formica top.

In the center of the room I've set up for photography. The wall is where I hang my painting to photograph. Realistically I have almost 20' from that wall and about 16' wide.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Fabulous! The "best" answer is simple, get a Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G macro lens. But you do have a real range of lenses that will work. The lowest cost would be a 50mm f/1.8G, which would probably be just as good in terms of image quality!

jrm40 Loc: Cape Coral Florida

Great, I had no idea what to look for in a macro lens. Thank, very much appreciated.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

The lens does not matter--for objects that big, you do not need macro. It may help to use a longer zoom setting and back up, though technically that does not matter, either. It has to be a physical problem in the plane of subject and plane of image.

jrm40 Loc: Cape Coral Florida

As I said earlier, tomorrow I'll take a series of pics at different settings, align center of lens and more carefully align tripod. I'm in the process of taping a large canvas with center horizontal and vertical lines and running tape around edges. I feel taking photos of that may give me a clearer idea what's causing the distortion than of a painting with little reference other than focus.

canon Lee

Hello.. I am an artist as well and I do photograph paintings. Its very important that your painting is perfectly level horizontally as well as vertically. Use a level. and use a level on your camera to make sure its level as well. Use a 100mm macro lens. If your shot is still not correct, then use Adobe Photoshop. check out this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msFaG8A5Wk0

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

There is no need for the painting to be perfectly level. The need is for the camera's sensor to be exactly parallel to the painting, whatever that is. It is much easier to match the camera to the painting by means more accurate than using a level. (See a previous post about using a flat mirror on the canvas.)

A 100mm macro lens would, even for someone with the large 20 foot space the OP has, be very restricting on the size of a canvas that can be photographed. With the OP's DX Nikon D5200 the largest size canvas would be 38"x57" and the OP says the smallest is 28"36". On the other hand, for use with an FX camera a 105mm macro lens would useful if the canvas is no larger than 4-1/2 feet on the smaller dimension.

To calculate the field of view go to http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/calc.htm and scroll down to the "Dimensional Field of View Calculator".

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

[quote=G Brown]

I think every decent camera I've ever owned - from the 1970s - had that symbol, but I've never had a use for it. Good idea, though.

I don't think the problem is parallax, but I think your string technique would work. It sounds like the picture and the camera are not perfectly parallel. It can be corrected in post, but it's better to get it right before clicking the shutter.

jackpi Loc: Southwest Ohio

If axis of your camera lens is not perfectly perpendicular to the center of the painting, you will get an image with non-parallel edges. You get another type of distortion because the edges of the painting are further away from your focal plane than the center of the painting. You can minimize this type of distortion shooting further away from the image with a longer focal length lens.